Futuritis Redux
by pheobe p
Summary: What happened during Futuritis when we weren't looking? Eventual Dasey ... The beginning chapters are a repost
1. Chapter 1

Futuritis Redux

So I took this down because I thought I wouldn't ever finish it -- but (with many thanks to the encouragement of unoriginal_liz) I DID manage to finish it and decided to repost it. (Sorry if reposting all the earlier chapters are flooding your inbox!)

. . .

Chapter one -- **Derek**

"Derek!"

Derek palmed open the heavy doors to the back parking lot. He ignored the protests of his girlfriend as he pulled her through the mess of students heading to their cars.

"Derek! Can we slow down …please!"

All last period, he'd pictured the mail truck on his street, the mailbox crammed with letters, and one of the letters... the one he'd been waiting for … Derek jogged the last yards to The Prince.

When he got to the car, finally, he glanced down at Emily. Her face was red and most of her hair sprung loose from its clip.

She yanked her hand free from his grasp, crossed her arms over her chest. "Derek! God! Why are you in such a hurry, anyway?" She could only meet his eyes for a second before she tucked her chin down against the wind that had been pestering all of London the last few days. A weird cold front had descended over lower Canada, despite the lateness in the school year.

"Sorry, Em… I just …" he didn't like to admit that he was racing to get to the mail – find out his fate for the next four years. He hated how desperate he felt about college and the future. He especially hated hat the desperation implied he might have made a mistake in his priorities through high school. "The wind, I guess," he lied. "I wanted to get to the car, get us out of it."

Derek unlocked the passenger door to let her in. He felt like she wanted something more from him – a pretty common feeling for him these days. He tried to smile at her, seem like the carefree guy she'd thought she was getting in this relationship. He felt bad that he'd been mostly ignoring her today.

Emily sighed and got into the car.

Derek watched her, holding the door still. She _did_ want something, waited for something from him. He ground his teeth, this was why dating Sally had been so easy – being around her had been like being around another guy; there wasn't all this puzzling out of her feelings. Sally wanted something -- she told him – he gave it to her – she shut up. Sally had been so _easy_. The party … Emily's always worried about the party …ask her about it …

"Doesn't feel nearly as cold as yesterday," he offered. Derek knew Emily worried the weather wouldn't clear over the next two weeks. She'd planned a huge pool party/cookout to kick off the summer.

She half-smiled at him appreciatively, "You blinked, Derek."

"You know, that doesn't _always_ mean that I'm lying."

The last two days she'd been examining his every facial tic, thanks to Sam cornering him about pulling a graduation prank. Sam tipped off Emily to the Derek blinking = Derek lying correlation.

Now, he felt like he was under a microscope whenever he told her anything. But he didn't need to get so defensive. _This is Emily … the girl's been in love with you since kindergarten so be nice to her... "Besides, it does feel warmer, right?"_

Emily's smile got a little more genuine. "Maybe." She looked up at him with that doe-eyed look she'd been giving him since prom – the one that plainly said, "I can't believe you really like me". _See. She's crazy about me_. He smirked as he shut the car door.

The parkinglot had started to clear out. That little spat with Emily had cost him valuable minutes against the after-school traffic. _The mail would be there, in the box, by now! _Derek watched the last of their classmates, hunched over against the cold wind, as they drifted through the senior's lot. Still no sign of Casey though. Derek frowned. He didn't want her walking in this wind.

Derek slouched by the driver's side door and scanned the lot for Truman French's navy BMW. _There he is… and there's Casey._ His stepsister clutched those stupid cards with world's worst valedictorian speech written all over them.

Casey's hair whipped around her in long brown ribbons. Her shirt was too thin and her skirt was way too short. _That was Truman's influence._ Derek felt his jaw tighten. He watched as Truman let his stepsister into the BMW. Truman clearly checked out Casey's long legs as she bent them into the car. Derek rapped his knuckles on the roof of The Prince; his hands had balled into fists. He went back to grinding his teeth – his jaw constantly ached these days.

The driver's side door opened under him and Emily's face appeared. She leaned over the front seat, creaked the door open against the wind to see what was taking him so long. "Derek?"

He forced himself to relax, to smile, act like nothing bothered him. "Yep," he slid into the seat and closed the door behind him. He pecked Emily on the lips and started the car. "Let's go home."

"Or we could go to Smelly Nelly's and get milkshakes?"

Derek's grip on the steering wheel tightened, "I really need to get home, Em."

"But we never do anything fun after school!"

He cut his eyes as her and saw her pout. "I'm sorry bout that and I'll make it up to you later, kay? I just have a lot of stuff to do and … alright …" Derek scratched at the back of his neck. "To tell you the truth…"

But Emily wasn't deterred from her complaints; she interrupted him, "And I know you keep saying you have all this …" she crinkled her fingers to make air quotes, "important stuff on your mind…"

Derek drew his upper lip between his teeth to chew at it a second. Why couldn't Emily pick up on the tells he really needed her to _get?_ … She was Casey's best friend for fuck's sake! He expected she would be more like his stepsister and … _just know_. Like right now, he was sick to his stomach with worry but she didn't even _see_.

"Anyway, Derek… there can't be anything more important than spending time with your girlfriend…especially not some prank that has all your attention…"

"Jeez, Emily! What the fuck is wrong with you? I don't need all this 'don't prank graduation' shit from you, too. Why does everyone keep riding my ass about a stupid prank? I am NOT planning a prank! I told you I wasn't, and that means I'M NOT even if I fucking blink!"

Emily turned away from him to stare out the passenger side window. And she was sniffing … which meant she was crying …which meant he had _made_ her cry …_again_. Since he'd begun dating her, Derek realized that, over the years, he'd failed to notice that Emily was super sensitive or that Casey had toughened up while living in his house. He'd assumed the two best friends to be far more alike in temperament than they actually were.

Turned out, Emily wasn't equipped for the kind of teasing, fighting or playing that girls who had brothers accepted. Dimi was still little, Marti's age, and regularly bossed by his sister. It was probably why the poor kid got along so well with a little diva-in-training like Smarti.

He'd pulled on to their block before Derek realized that Emily's silence and tears weren't going to end on their own. Sometimes, if he just waited these little episodes out, she managed to pull herself together. But, this obviously wasn't one of those times, "Listen… I don't mean to be an asshole here…" Derek pulled to a stop at the curb between their two houses. "Emily?"

She ignored him and got out of the car, slamming the door behind her.

He worried his lip between his teeth again as he watched her stomp up her porch stairs and then slam that door behind her too.

_Great. Perfect. Derek slumped behind the wheel for a second and then looked towards the mailbox, the one thing on his mind all day. The little flag was down. __It had come! _

_He sprinted up to the house and rifled through the letters with shaking hands: two credit card bills, advertisements, Edwin's pen pal from Ireland, Casey's Grandma Susan … __Fuck, just a few left_ … a graduation card from Dennis McDonald – _bastard wasn't coming then – figures_. A scarily official looking letter from Marti's school, Derek stuffed that in his pocket.

_One left_ … He closed his eyes. _You are such a fucking pansy – just look._

QUEENS COLLEGE FOR DEREK VENTURI

His hands were shaking bad now. Open it.

Derek crammed the rest of the mail back the little iron mailbox.

_Open it._

_Don't be such an Emo. _

He took the stairs two at a time as he ripped the letter open... He was in.

He had the scholarship.

He was going to Queens! "Whoa.."

Aaaaand someone was in his room? Derek folded the letter and put it in his pocket.

"Derek?" His father lay across his bed, much as Edwin had the day before_. I haven't even moved out yet and everyone suddenly feels like they can just make themselves at home IN MY ROOM._

"I've been thinking about your future…" his dad started.

Derek batted around a conversation with him until his dad finally left, but he couldn't really concentrate.

_What a relief – the scholarship had come through! He hadn't been a good enough player to be completely assured a spot regardless of his grades. Especially not with that __one specific school_ in mind. What Derek wants, Derek gets. No one realized how much effort it took to _not want_ what you _couldn't get_. Well, almost no one.

Next door to him he heard Casey running through world's worst valedictorian speech again. The thing had actually gotten more depressing since her first draft. And she still hadn't accepted her own scholarship to Queens.

He sighed, _time for an intervention_. He turned up the volume on his stereo and kicked one speaker to face her wall.

Then he lay back on his bed and waited for her.

(To Be Continued)


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2 - Emily

Emily stared up at her ceiling. She'd come straight upstairs after school – ignored her worried mother's questions. _Derek! _ Emily had flung herself on her bed and cried until she'd finally drifted off to a restless nap.

Dating him felt like a miracle at first. But lately, more often than not, she came home angry and upset after being with him.

Still, _Derek Venturi! _ She couldn't believe she was finally, _finally_, dating him – able to kiss him and cuddle in front of the television and call him her boyfriend.

She could sit on the popular staircase before school started, and after lunch – and not just because she was the friend of the geeky girl dating the quarterback, but because she was _Derek Venturi's girlfriend! Unbelievable! _

She smiled to herself, felt the giddy rush that always came with the realization that she had done it. He was hers!

Then their fight came back to her. She squashed the pillow she'd gripped to her chest and then hurled it across the room.

_Why did she push him about going out for milkshakes after school?_

_Why did she have to bring up the stupid prank rumor? Why did she have to hound him about the blinking thing?_

She replayed the conversation in the car.

He'd been a jerk to her, right? She wasn't over-reacting, pulling a total Casey on him or anything, was she?

He'd yelled at her! Emily's eyes filled with tears again. That jerk!

She wanted to hear her best friend rant against boys who yell at their girlfriends.

Casey always knew just how to slant things so that it wasn't _just_ a boy being a jerk, but a bigger, _societal_ problem involving all adolescent males and their aggressive tendencies – that kind of reasoning always left Emily no room at all to blame herself. Or _Derek_, now that she considered it.

If Casey convinced her that Derek's yelling was less a problem with Derek, or her, and, just more a problem with _all_ boys then … _Then_, Emily didn't need to feel bad about their fighting or even need to stay mad at him for it!

Casey would be able to bring back the giddy rush of those first incredible days of being _Derek Venturi's girlfriend_ by putting everything into her own special perspective. Emily smiled, relief flooding every part of her body.

She reached for the phone and dialed the Venturi house.

But, _oh god!_, Derek might answer the phone! Or, _even worse_, he might overhear their conversation.

Emily had already caught him turning down the stereo in his room to better hear

her on the phone with Truman, with Noel and, once, weirdly, with her dad.

If he thought she was pouting and complaining to Casey then … he would know that Emily had been obsessing about him again! That couldn't be good. Derek hated clingy, insecure girls.

Marti's voice piped out of the receiver "Mcdonald – Venturi residence! Marti speaking!"

Emily quickly hung up.

This aspect of finally dating Derek, the fact of his being Casey's stepbrother, had blindsided her somewhat.

She couldn't just pop by her best friend's anymore in her dirty sweats and slippers. She couldn't lounge on the couch with Casey and stuff herself with caramel popcorn and ice cream. She couldn't cry or gush or call her boyfriend a jerk because he was only a thin wall away from her best friend's bedroom.

It wasn't fair.

Besides, Casey was obviously uncomfortable whenever she talked to her about Derek.

When she tried to gush to her about the romantic moments, Casey covered her ears and made gagging noises, "Oh god, Emily! I just … no … I can't … I really, just …NO!"

Emily supposed this was normal. Dimi was so much younger than she was that

she just didn't have the typical brother/sister relationship with him.

She felt more like Dimi's mother than his sister and he usually did come to her with his crushes and asked her advice.

But, normally, brothers and sisters grossed out over each other's love lives, right?

Still, what was new to her relationship with Casey was that Emily suddenly was forbidden from complaining about Derek.

_Wait, was the forbidden part what was new?_ She sat up in her bed, shook off that last of her grogginess from the nap.

Had she ever complained about Derek before? _ I guess I haven't. _

Usually _Casey_ complained and Emily _listened._

But, now that they were dating, things had reversed. Sort of.

Because, now … weirdly … Casey defended Derek to Emily!

Just today they had both been reapplying lip gloss and blush in the school bathroom while Emily griped about Derek's continual tardiness. He picked her up late for their dates; he was never on time to meet her at her locker, or the cafeteria. He even called her hours after he promised to… the list was endless, really! He never did anything when he said that he would!

Casey had looked pained. "I'm sure it isn't personal, Em."

Casey watched Emily in the bathroom mirror they shared, looking like it was her that Emily was criticizing.

"He doesn't do it on purpose. You aren't going to be mad at him for it, are you? It's just that he is waiting to hear about the waitlist from Western and he wants to get in as much hockey practice as he can… don't be mad at him Em, okay?"

She'd turned to face Emily then with the round eyes and pout that she only got when someone was mad at her.

Emily had quickly reassured her, "No, of course not. You're right; it's just the way he is and I knew that going into this relationship. I won't get mad."

Casey looked relieved and Emily felt relieved and they both went back to smoothing gloss on their lips.

But, _what the hell_?

_Casey_ can go on a diatribe about all the disgusting things Derek does in the bathroom, or with his dirty laundry,

and _Casey_ can plot revenge against him (with actual bodily harm!) … but Emily can't even _hint_ that she is justifiably frustrated with him because ... it might _hurt his feelings_?

And that wasn't the only time that Casey had shut her down from criticizing Derek!

Casey defended his taking Emily to a fast food place before a movie.

She justified his blowing off shopping at the mall with her.

She even subtly backed him up when Derek vetoed a double date to a romantic French restaurant Emily planned with Truman and Casey in favor of a larger group meeting up at the bowling alley. And Casey loved French food!

It just didn't make sense!

But, wait! Maybe it _did _make sense if you considered that Casey's loyalties were with her stepbrother rather than her best friend.

Emily felt the burning in her throat that meant she was going to cry – again!

Of course Casey would - and maybe even should – have loyalty towards her own family rather than a friend – but it just felt so cruel to be out in the open like this.

_Who will be on my side? Who is going to defend me?_ Emily sniffed. Until her epiphany, Emily never realized how much she counted on Casey's assertive, sometimes irrational, need to confront all perceived slights against herself or her friends.

If this was a different boyfriend, not her brother, Casey would have made certain the French restaurant night happened!

She would have implemented a plan of action when it came to dragging Emily's boyfriend to the mall over hockey and she would have prodded and retrained him into showing up on time to Emily's locker or lunch or called with reminders before dates.

It would have caused Emily to cringe and to tell her best friend to back off – but it would have gotten the job done!

And it would have made Emily feel loved rather than abandoned.

She had gotten up from the bed and started wandering around the room while she morosely ticked off all that she had lost by dating her best friend's brother until she was staring out the window at the Venturi house.

A part of her wished that both Derek and Casey would come to their windows and see her looking forlornly out at their house and share her epiphany – then they would rush over and throw themselves at her feet, apologizing.

Casey would beg her to be first in her heart again and vow to always take her side.

Derek would swear to devote himself to being a better boyfriend to her: more punctual, more eager to spend time with her after school.

She wasn't so far gone that she actually expected any of that to happen – a truth that made her sniff back another rush of indignant tears.

Suddenly the front door to the Venturi home opened below her.

Emily scurried back behind her ruffled curtains.

Casey and Derek appeared on the front porch, the fading light outside made them hard to see. Emily pushed the ruffled chiffon aside and looked closer.

As usual, they were half fighting: slapping each other away, shoulder checking and shoving, but half playing too. Derek lifted Casey up by her waist and spun her like he was getting ready to do a professional wrestling move. Casey yanked at his ear until he set her back down.

They made there way to the curb where the prince still sat. Derek opened the door for Casey but looked really put out by it. Casey pinched his cheek before she slid inside.

Emily felt her stomach tighten. Neither of them had even glanced towards her house before Derek pulled out. Neither had thought to invite her along.

Did they do that a lot? Go places and do things and not invite her?

Well, of course they did! And nothing was wrong with that!

They lived in the same house and were part of the same family and probably did brother / sister bonding things just the way she did with Dimi!

But, Emily's heart was pounding as she reasoned out her jealousy. Her hands sweated with nerves.

_You're being ridiculous!_

Hadn't she, just yesterday, taken Dimi out for an after dinner ice cream cone? She didn't think of asking along either Casey or Derek for _that did_ she?

Emily still stared at the empty spot where the prince had sat parked.

_Oh,_ but, she had actually called over to their house. She'd called to ask Derek if he wanted her to bring him something back, hadn't she?

He'd been out.

So she'd asked for Casey.

_And Casey had been out too._

To Be Continued ...


	3. Chapter 3

**. . . . **

Chapter 3 - Casey

Casey slouched in the passenger side of the prince. She and Derek had driven nearly halfway across London, for some inexplicable reason, to find a convenience store that sold pistachio ice cream. She'd argued with him that the stuff her mom liked could be found closer to home but he'd ignored her.

"I know where to go," he'd scoffed. They'd driven for forty minutes until he spotted this place and parked. This completely random little gas station shop that he hadn't known about until he'd seen it – she was certain. He'd obviously just wanted to drive around for a while.

She'd put up a fuss, but the drive had been kind of fun. They both wanted out of the house and away from their parents' constant need to reminisce now that their high school years, and years of living at home, were drawing to a close. Even for the normally sentimental Casey – it got to be a little much.

Besides, Derek had been on a strange sugar buzz since he'd come home from school. He had some kind of good news that he was keeping to himself. Casey wanted to know it.

From inside the prince, Casey could see him with the green and white ice cream pistachio ice cream container, her mother's pregnancy obsession. Derek stood in line behind two red-faced college age boys buying chips and sodas. The two boys laughed and made big gestures like they'd had too much to drink.

Casey couldn't hear them but she could tell that they were making fun of the checker, a skinny sharp-faced boy who reminded her of Noel.

One of the two older boys seemed to pick an argument about the price of the soda while the other pocketed a handful of candy bars.

Casey scooted back up in the car seat so she could see better.

The boy who took the candy bars began stuffing his jacket with batteries, lighters, cigars, chewing gum – basically everything under the counter he could reach without the clerk noticing.

Derek sighed visibly, shook his head at the antics of the other two boys.

_Isn't he going to do anything? They're stealing! _ Casey knocked against the dashboard to get Derek's attention, which, just a second later, she realized was completely ridiculous. It wasn't like he could hear her from inside the store.

_He, seriously, is not going to do anything! _

When the clerk turned his back, the boy picking the argument with the clerk leaned over counter to grab a pack of cigarettes from a display.

Casey opened the car door. If _Derek_ wanted to stand by and let those two jerks steal from this store then that could weigh _on his_ conscience! She wouldn't stand by and do nothing!

The two thieves finished paying for the chips and sodas, and the Noel-look-alike swiped the back of one hand across his forehead in relief.

Casey marched into the store.

Casey heard the glass doors ping closed behind her and caught a whiff of alcohol from the two boys trying to walk past her – _So they really are drunk! _ Immediately she felt out of her league with the situation. Still, she couldn't stop herself.

She threw an arm out to block the exit, "Stop! I know what the two of you did and I think … I think … you both need to …put the stuff you took back and …"

When she first opened her mouth to speak, both boys had paused and stopped, both of them looking stunned and caught.

However, they didn't seem stunned when she _finished _speaking; they were both smirking at her. The one holding the chips, the one who'd hassled the store clerk, stepped closer, looked her up and down … maybe sizing her up … maybe checking her out.

"I saw you take those things under the counter and …" Casey looked up at the store clerk, but the clerk's eyes went wide when she tried to pull him into the confrontation, and he feigned ignorance of the confrontation in front of him. Instead the Noel look alike pretended to straighten up the stacks of magazines and jars of cigars near the cash register.

Neither of the drunken boys looked over their shoulders to worry about the cashier, either. Casey swallowed.

The boy who had hassled the cashier handed the bag of chips to his buddy. When he stepped forward, another wave of the strong liquor scent coming off him hit her. Both boys had glassy, bloodshot eyes.

The one closest to Casey, licked at his lips, "Did you want us to share with you, gorgeous?" Casey felt sick as his sweet, hot breath touched her cheek and she cringed away from him. "Cause I have no problem making a little party of it…" The boy picked a lock of her hair from her shoulder and rubbed it between his fingers.

Derek was beside her in a flash, "Get away from her." Derek pushed at the drunk boy's shoulder and the boy's fingers released her hair.

"What's your problem, man? She wasn't even talking to you!" The drunken boy had puffed out his chest and moved to push Derek back. With his red face and sloppy movements it might have been funny, but Casey felt panic bubbling instead.

Derek took the shove seemingly without reacting, but Casey could see his jaw tense and the muscles in his arms pull tight.

"Derek!" she hissed. She tried to grab at his shirtsleeve to hold him back but her stepbrother shook her loose.

"Back off," Derek warned the drunken boy. Derek pulled Casey out of the way of the glass doors to let them pass.

But two didn't seem eager to leave. "I asked you what's your problem?" The boy in front pushed at Derek's shoulder again. Still, Derek didn't react.

But then the boy glanced over Derek's shoulder to Casey. Despite how drunk he was, he must have read something in the situation right. He wanted a fight. The boy reached for Casey, like he was going to scoop the lock of hair off her shoulder again.

Derek's fist shot out and plowed into the other boy's face with a crunch. The drunken boy stumbled, blood gushing from his nose.

Instinctively, Casey began to move towards him to help. It would have been a reflex for her to pull the boy who had just threatened her from the floor, pat down her pockets for a tissue. _But that can't be the right thing to do, can it?_

Confused and shocked she looked towards Derek and saw him roll his eyes at her in frustration. _He seems mad? Why would he be mad at me for wanting to help? _But the question had barely formed before Derek hauled her backwards and up by the waist and half-carried, half-dragged her from the store.

Once he'd gotten her outside again, the reality of what had happened hit her. Plus, the buddy of the boy Derek had punched started after them, so Derek didn't need to convince her to race to the car and lock herself inside.

The prince squealed out of the little lot and into the street.

"What the fuck did you think you were doing?" he shouted at her.

_I thought I was doing the right thing_, she thought, but she couldn't choke the words out. Had she really thought she was doing the right thing or just angry that he did nothing? Who cares about that convenience store and all the little things that two drunken idiots wanted? The convenience store employee didn't even care! Why did she barge in there? What did she expect to happen?

She couldn't answer Derek's question when she couldn't even answer the barrage of her own.

Derek huffed. A definite "I thought so" sound to it.

_Stupid Derek!_ He probably _knew_ she couldn't answer when he asked her – he always knew what she was thinking and feeling before she knew herself. First the "futuritis" diagnosis earlier this evening and now this! _Stupid, all knowing, Derek!_

He'd merged the prince onto the highway without checking traffic, without slowing at the yield sign. "Derek, slow down."

He cut his eyes at her and they were glassy and hard. She knew to shut up. She slunk back in the seat. Did he even know where he was going? Of course he didn't! He hadn't even known where he was going when he brought her along on this errand to get her mom more ice cream.

It was finally a nice night because all the cold wind had died down, so she'd let him drive her all around London listening to the radio, hanging out. They'd talked a little more about the valedictorian speech.

(She was going to have to stay up all night rewriting the stupid thing but that was okay. )Then he talked a little about doing a prank – and swore to her that it wouldn't be _on_ her or during the was a time his promising her anything of the sort would have carried no weight at all. But she trusted him now. He didn't like to humiliate her.

He'd been too stressed out for any talk of a prank just yesterday, but then the secret "something" had happened that put him into such a good mood this evening... well until the convenience store.

He'd gotten good news from Western maybe? Had he tried out for the pros? Bought the ticket to Europe? She turned to look at his profile. His jaw was tense and his knuckles white as he gripped the steering wheel. _Yikes!_

She faced front again and gulped. Apparently Derek still considered them "on the run" from the convenience store thieves. And he'd decided that she was to blame for the entire ruined evening.

"I'm not going to yell at you again."

"Derek, I am so …"

"No! Do _not_ say sorry because this is the kind of shit that you've apologized for before, and then gone ahead and done over and over." He reached over and grabbed her by the chin so that she faced him again.

"Watch the road, Derek!"

"I _am_ watching the road. I'm just making sure _you_ watch _me_. Look at me, Case!"

"Fine!" She studied his profile again; he didn't look any less pissed off than he did the first time. "Okay, I'm looking at you! What _really important thing_ do you _have_ to tell me that I _need to be looking at you_ to hear?"

Derek made a quick right and swung them down an exit ramp into some area of town that Casey didn't recognize. But it was dark and this was right off the highway, so that didn't mean much. She hated driving in both those situations.

"Where are we anyway?" she asked, peering back out the front windshield.

Derek had pulled down a wooded lane, sinking them into darkness.

"Is this a park? It's kind of creepy."

Derek cut the engine and turned her by the chin to face him again. "Case," his voice was softer but he still looked angry, tense, and like he was gritting his teeth. _Not good._

"Derek, I am …" _Oops._ His eyes flashed and his grip on her chin became painful. _Oh yeah, apologizing only made things worse before. _

"Case," Derek started again. He let go of her chin and popped his seatbelt, then reached over and popped hers loose too.

She rolled her eyes at him. For once _he_ was the one being dramatic – _she'd said sorry!_ Well, she'd _tried_ to say sorry at least!

Derek took her face between his palms. For one crazy moment she thought he was going _to kiss_ her! But he still looked so angry… _and Derek would never kiss her_!

"Being a keener is fine in school. People might make fun of you, or even be mean to you, but out in the real world …"

Casey broke free from his grasp. "No, Derek! Out in the real world, people _like me_ keep civilization from falling into total…"

"Casey, You could've gotten hurt!"

Casey shrunk back from the force of his shout. He pulled her back to him.

He looked the way he'd looked back in the store, she realized. Eyes hard and a little wild, the way he got in hockey or … that one time at Ralph's house when a very drunk Jerry Simpson called her a tease. Then, after Derek punched him, Jerry called Derek an asshole, and threw an empty beer bottle at the prince … _yeah that night hadn't ended well …_

"That guy … touched you … touched your hair …"

"But, they were _stealing!_ I couldn't just do …nothing!"

"Yes, _you could_. What you did was stupid! Even the fucking cashier was going to let those guys go!"

She folded her arms over her chest. Derek panted and ran his fingers through his hair. "God! Casey what if I hadn't been there? What if they hadn't been so drunk and I couldn't take them both? What would have happened if they knocked me out or I was hurt too bad to come after you?"

Casey could imagine that – could see Derek getting pummeled back in that convenience store because of her.

She would have never told him this but, he wasn't actually much of a fighter – either on the ice or off of it. His one advantage was that he had a hair-trigger temper and it usually helped him get the first blows in quickly, and forcefully, because they were shot through with adrenaline.

So Derek was right. Those guys would have killed him. Casey felt her indignation crumple and she bit at her lip to fight back crying. _Derek hates that. And I hate that too._ "I'm sorry," she whispered.

He seemed to accept her apology this time. He relaxed just a little, and his eyes didn't have that scary sheen to them anymore. "Just promise me that you'll think – before you rush in to save the day like that – just think about what you're doing and … make sure you're …safe."

She might have won the battle with her tears, but Casey could feel her nose start to run. She took a big sniff and it made Derek wince a little. He always felt so terrible if he made her cry and, for some reason, that usually made her feel even worse. Was he trying to tell her he was leaving her? She thought about his puzzling good mood and leaned forward to whisper, "I guess I won't have you to watch my back for me if you go to Europe."

It was a low blow, but she had to know; _that Europe business … that was just talk. Right?_

He narrowed his eyes at her, but a smirk caught his lips. _He is so on to me here…_

"No. I guess you wouldn't have me to watch your back if I went to Europe. And I guess I wouldn't have you to watch mine either."

Derek leaned back from her and made a show of looking her up and down – as if he had decided to assess her worth as a "back watcher" in comparison with a long vacation in the south of France.

Irritating, but definitely not the reaction of someone planning to leave the other behind.

_No way is he really going._ Finalizing Europe wasn't the mysterious good thing that happened since yesterday then. A wave of relief flooded over her. She met his smug smile with one of her own.

He must have seen that she understood, because he tried to throw her off again. "You got nothing from me, McDonald."

Derek started the car. They were horribly late and going home without the ice cream, but the high spirits from when they'd left had returned.

"Oh I think I got plenty, Venturi," Casey countered. _Nope, he definitely isn't going_. She couldn't keep from beaming a smile at him.

Derek shook his head at her and turned the car towards home.


	4. Chapter 4

. . . .

Chapter 4 – Edwin

. . . .

So… Derek gave him an important mission – to plan the graduation prank to end all graduation pranks PLUS establish himself, _in the Venturi name_, as Derek's successor. So…

So…

Edwin tapped his pencil on the graph paper in front of him. _So…_

"Haven't thought of anything yet?" Lizzie stood in the doorway to his room.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Edwin countered.

"Derek's graduation prank," Lizzie came more fully into the room, stood behind his desk. She leaned to look over his shoulder and he covered the page with his arm.

"You don't even have anything written on that paper, Edwin."

See if this had been _Casey,_ then at least some of the last three things Lizzie had said to him would have been sarcastic or mocking, but because it was _Lizzie_ saying them they all came out as sincere. _This is why Lizzie is my favorite stepsister._

Edwin gave up the pretense and moved his arm, "I need something really good – a big exit prank for Derek and something to …" he drifted off at the end. _Something to make Derek think I'm finally ready to follow in his footsteps._ He kept quiet though. Lizzie would only think the second half of that statement was lame. She didn't understand.

"You want to be like him, don't you?"

_Okay maybe she did understand a little. _

She moved to sit on his bed and hugged his pillow to her chest. "Derek wants to make sure nobody else takes his place as the great Derek Venturi. So, you're going to start off your high school rep before high school even starts."

_Yep, pretty much. _ "Maybe." Edwin tipped his desk chair back to better see her. "How about you? Are you all set to take over as the new Klutzilla of J.S. Thompson?"

Their eyes met and they both cracked up a little. "Definitely not," Lizzie choked out.

But in typical, Liz fashion, she answered him honestly, "But I might kind of like being the big sister for a change. Just now I was tucking in Marti and trying to get her mind off of the new baby …"

Lizzie flopped back to look up at the ceiling but Edwin could tell that she was miles away in her mind.

"I started to tell her all these cool things we could do together in the summer – swimming and making popsicles and beading our hair and tie dye shirts … these are all the things I did with Casey back when she was still…"

Lizzie seemed suddenly aware of how wistful she sounded and she glanced nervously at Edwin.

But just as she had perfectly understood his mind a moment earlier, he understood exactly where her mind had gone. "They used to be more fun" he finished for her. "They used to want to play games and …"

"And do crafts," Lizzie interjected, "And … bake cookies …and…"

"Well, I don't remember Derek ever doing crafts or baking."

Edwin smiled because he made _her_ smile, and they both laughed again. But the laughter was a little pained.

Both of their hearts' breaking just a little, in anticipation of their siblings leaving home.

Edwin went back to tapping at the graph paper with his pencil. "I know that I'm not ever going _to be Derek_, you know? I'm not popular. I'm not a big sports star. Girls aren't calling the house for me like they did for him. Even when he was my age, he had all that."

_Shit was all that out loud? _

Edwin stopped tapping the graph paper and it was his turn to glance up nervous for his stepsibling's reaction.

The worse thing would have been … pity. But Lizzie had her same matter-of-fact, sincere expression.

"I don't …mind … " he continued, slowly, never having voiced these thoughts. "I don't want to be him, not long term or anything. Anyway, I _couldn't_ be him, even if I _did want_ to be."

"No. I couldn't be _her_ either." Lizzie seemed equally nonplussed about the admission. Edwin could read in it the same things he had said: that even if she _had_ wanted to, she _couldn't_ be her older sister.

"When we left Toronto, two of Casey's teachers actually cried because they wouldn't get the chance to teach her again. Sister Elizabeth, the music instructor, even gave Casey an ivory rosary that had been in her family for generations. Derek would have puked!" Lizzie laughed – so Edwin did too – although he thought that Casey's teachers crying over losing her as a student was fairly deserving of puke.

"So this," Lizzie pointed at the empty graph paper. "The main part of it – is for him – for Derek and not just …"

"Yeah. He's all serious lately. And grown up. He's even nice to Casey!"

"She's nice to him too. It's weird. I thought they hated each other but I guess getting older…"

"No it isn't just that. As soon as Nora got back from the doctor – about the baby – Derek decided that he should sort of bury the hatchet with her I guess," Edwin sighed.

The baby was causing a lot of change and it wasn't even here yet.

He didn't even know if he wanted a baby around. Would it cry all night and pee everywhere? What did babies even do? Or eat?

_Oh no!_ Was Nora going to have her boob out feeding it all the time?

The thought of his stepmother – who he thought of no differently than his biological mother – with one breast hanging out of her shirt was …_horrifying!_

Lizzie seemed thoughtful and unaware of his turmoil – _how could he ask about Nora having her boobs hanging out? _

Lizzie would surely know what potential for gross boob sightings he had to brace himself for. _But how to ask her without seeming like a pervert? _

"So did Derek know about Mom before the rest of us?" _What?_

"Well, yeah," he blurted without thinking. He was still mulling over the best way to bring up her mom's breasts and how much of them had to be "sticking out," and for how long each day, with a baby in the house. "It's my job to take the trash out back and I saw the test so I brought it to Derek …"

"So you knew before the rest of us too?" For the first time that night Lizzie lost her natural serenity. "And you didn't think to mention it to me or to Casey? God! After all this time it's still Venturis versus McDonalds for you and Derek isn't it?"

"Jeez! Calm down Liz! I was going to tell you but Derek told me not to! He said he had to fix some stuff first!"

"Fix what?" Lizzie didn't seem the least bit calmed down and Edwin was starting to regret even bringing it up.

"How should I know!" But Lizzie looked so angry that he forced himself to play back Derek's rambled plans after Edwin brought him the pregnancy test he'd found in the trash.

The test, Derek had nastily informed him, that _Nora had peed on!_ God! His brother had been in a bad mood that night!

_Oh yeah!_

"I remember!" He stopped Lizzie from pacing his little attic bedroom. There were only like five steps to make before you had to turn around again if you wanted to pace, so she had looked kind of stupid doing it.

"He said that he needed to make peace with Casey. That they were going to be siblings and so he wanted to … get her back together with Truman …and ask out Emily … and then … everyone would be … happy?" Edwin shrugged.

Okay so Derek's plan sounded really dumb now that he retold it all to Lizzie. But his brother had seemed really, really pissed off about the results of the pregnancy test – _peed on test_! – Edwin shuddered.

At the time, Edwin had been grateful to say, "Sounds awesome bro!" and gotten the hell out of there.

Lizzie crossed her arms over her chest, and if she _were_ trying to morph into Casey – well she would have been doing an excellent job of it with that particular stance. "That's … stupid. He thought getting her a prom date would …"

Lizzie shook her head, same old mature and even tempered Lizzie again. _Thank God! _

"I guess that makes sense in Derek-land. It's kind of sweet in a totally stupid way."

"Maybe," Edwin shrugged. He looked down to study the empty graph paper as if he'd actually written the plans for a prank on it. Even though the paper was blank, he crumpled it up and tossed it into the trash behind him.

Lizzie cocked her head to the side, "There's always Edweirdo – wasn't that the name of your super-hero character? You still have the costume right? You could do something that seems like the real prank just after Casey's speech and then have something bigger planned for the end. Venturi is the last name they'll call …"

_Not bad!_ He grinned at her.

Edwin pulled out a new piece of graph paper. "Liz, you're a genius! The teachers at your private school in Toronto should have been crying over you leaving."

Liz made a face at him but Edwin could tell that she was flattered. Lizzie hid her smile with a quick, shy glance at the ground.

Edwin could hear the phone ring in the distance and Lizzie rolled her eyes, "Truman," she said. "He's going to be mad that she still isn't here. This is the fourth time he's called. He's like a stalker."

"Yeah, " Edwin agreed. He glanced behind him out the little attic porthole window. Emily was standing behind her curtains and watching their front yard.

He'd seen her off and on for the last two hours.

"They aren't back yet?"

Liz shrugged.

She leaned to look behind him out the porthole. So Liz had noticed too. "Derek's going to break up with her isn't he?" she asked him.

Now Edwin shrugged. "Probably."

"Casey's going to break up with Truman too."

Edwin met his stepsister's eyes, both of them now carefully expressionless. They were much better at keeping their siblings secrets than their own.

Especially _this_ secret.

They'd kept it for a long, long time.


	5. Chapter 5

. . . . .

Chapter five -- Sam

. . .

_This cannot be happening. _

Sam strolled the isles of the Quickie Mart with his hands shoved into his jean pockets. Because it was 10:00 on a weeknight, there was only one cashier on duty, a blond, sweet-faced girl who looked just a little older than him. But she was no one he knew. _Thank God for that! _

She kept giving him curious glances.

Sam had come there to buy _one specific thing_, and he knew right where to find that specific thing. But, as these might be the last moments of his life completely free from crushing responsibility, he wanted to make them last.

One more turn down the feminine products / contraceptives' isle – the cute cashier girl smirking at him now – _there it is_.

Best Choice Home Pregnancy Test. Sam's throat tightened as he slid one of the lavender boxes off the shelf. _The last one was wrong – it had to be. This cannot be happening. _

He stood staring at the box in his sweaty grip.

Kendra waited for him back at her sister's apartment. He should go. He should take the box and let the cute, older cashier girl ring him up.

Then he should drive to Kendra's sister's place and have her take the test again and then …

She'd told him after the _first_ test that she planned on having the baby, keeping the baby, and expected him to marry her.

Sam realized that the minute he took one step out of the feminine products / contraceptives' isle he would set in motion a succession of events that he couldn't even _imagine_ following through on. He was frozen with fear.

_This cannot be happening_.

The door to the Quickie Mart slid open with a chime and Sam whipped his head to see Derek and Casey racing each other into the store.

Once he was inside, Derek stopped short, forcing his stepsister to plow into his back.

"Der-rek!"

_Oh shit!_ What was he thinking coming to this particular corner store? Everyone came here -- the chances of running into someone he knew …

Derek caught Casey from the aftershock of their collision. He laughed at her embarrassment while he pulled her to his chest. "Same old Klutzilla."

"You made me do that! Same old jerky Derek," Casey sneered.

"Are you forgetting how I saved your do-gooder ass back across town?"

Derek sneered back at her, but he also slung an arm around her as he steered her towards the ice cream freezer.

Casey made a big show of trying to push him off, "I'm remembering how you stood by as a crime was being perpetrated." But pushing him off was clearly _just_ for show, because she let him squeeze her closer.

Sam watched, a little confused as Derek's fingers combed through the ends of his stepsister's long hair. _Couldn't she feel him doing that to her?_ If she did, she didn't acknowledge it.

Derek didn't either.

They looked … chummy. Sam couldn't remember them being so openly affectionate with each other. Of course, Sam had kind of been avoiding them the last two weeks.

He'd tried to goad Derek into doing a graduation prank recently, his only contact with his friend for the last several days. He had a feeling that Derek had seen right through that. Derek seemed to sense that a small, mean, part of Sam actually wanted Casey's valedictorian speech to be ruined.

Because it should have been Sam making that speech.

He'd had valedictorian locked up until Derek discovered his long-repressed ability at mathematics and started tutoring Sam's former girlfriend.

In the last year Casey – Sam's biggest rival for valedictorian – had managed to go up from a B- average in math to a solid A.

_Thanks a lot Derek!_

Sam had never minded being Derek Venturi's best friend when he could at least have the superiority of grades and intellect over Derek's charm, popularity and street smarts.

Not that being valedictorian was about Derek – wasn't totally about Derek – but about Sam's sense of his own self worth _next to_ Derek.

Sam was the smart friend.

And, as Derek proved to be exceptionally charming, popular and, _now with decent grades_, Sam had envisioned himself as exceptionally intelligent with _even better_ grades.

To be fair, it was _both_ step-siblings that had rocked his vision of himself, so he should have been resentful of the two of them. But it was still _Casey_ who was crowned valedictorian so she got the brunt of his bitterness.

Not that he was proud of himself. He hated feeling bitter about her success. He hated that he couldn't resist pushing Derek on the graduation prank.

He especially hated that he couldn't just shake off the valedictorian thing as no big deal.

But he DID care and he COULDN'T shake it off.

Of course, all this envy seemed insignificant in light of his NEW problems. He looked back down at the lavender box.

"Did you need some help picking one of those out?" No longer smirking, the blond, sweet-faced girl sounded full of pity when she asked.

Sam repressed a groan.

The girl didn't mean to out him, didn't have any idea that he might want to _avoid_ the notice of her other two customers.

"No," barely a whisper. Sam coughed, cleared his throat. "I got it." He tried to jog up to the cashier – maybe she would have it rung up and concealed in a bag before …

"Sam?" Casey blocked his path to the cashier. She carried a green and white carton of ice cream. Pistachio? "Hey, what are you doing here?"

Casey's wide blue eyes were so guileless, that Sam felt even worse about all the hard thoughts he'd had for her the last weeks.

Casey would never have begrudged Sam's success.

Derek came up behind her.

Now _that look_: Derek's eyes narrowed, nostrils flared, teeth bit at one cheek like he always did when sizing up opposing hockey teams_, that look_ was more what Sam felt he deserved.

As Sam had suspected, Derek hadn't been at all oblivious to the resentment seething though him over the valedictorian thing. Derek knew Sam wanted it.

Sam could see that knowledge in Derek's steely evaluation of him. _"No one treats my stepsister like that except for me,"_ had become a kind of mantra in Derek's high school years.

Sam sometimes wondered how he had ever stomached dating Casey with the way Derek lorded over everything that touched her.

Had his friend always been that obnoxiously protective?

"Sam, are you okay?" Casey's concerned eyes found the lavender box in Sam's hands at the same moment Derek's calculating glare did.

Both stepsiblings looked back at Sam's face in shock.

"I'm fine." His voice sounded dead. "I just … had to buy something."

Casey's mouth opened into a perfect circle. Her face blushed red. Sam wondered if she was still breathing.

Derek nudged her with his elbow. "Case, go pay for Nora's ice cream." He shoved a wad of bills at her.

Casey blinked and met Derek's eyes and he nodded her towards the cashier.

Sam really didn't need to hear whatever bullshit his friend wanted to say to him in private.

Whatever Derek thought he could say would be pretty much useless to Sam at this point and Sam hated when Derek tried to give him advice.

"Dude," Derek made a loose gesture towards the pregnancy test. "Kendra?"

Sam sucked in a gulp of air. He didn't expect his friend to guess right away but it probably made sense for him. Kendra at prom would be the last date that Derek had known about.

Sam nodded, "Yeah."

Weird part was, Sam and Kendra hadn't really dated. At least, Sam hadn't considered any of it a real relationship.

They'd hung out a little as the school year ended and had sex a few more times. Prom night had been his first time … but not hers, of course.

She'd told Sam that _Derek_ had been her first and that _they'd_ had a pregnancy scare too, right before Derek dumped her.

Sam had been jealous, and a little disgusted to tell the truth, to know that his friend had "been there first." But he almost felt a kinship about it now. Almost.

Derek opened his mouth – Sam was certain he was going to relate the story of his own scare with Kendra but Sam cut him off, "She's already taken one test and it came back positive."

"Make her go to the doctor, man. It's what I would do."

Sam choked a laugh out. "Is it what you _did _do?"

Derek peeked over his shoulder at Casey. She still appeared a little shell shocked, completely oblivious to their hushed conversation.

Derek turned back to Sam, his jaw tight. "Yeah, that's what I made her do. At the clinic they told her she wasn't." Derek's voice was hard. He was obviously pissed off that Sam brought it up where Casey might hear.

He was weird like that – really conscious about the kinds of things that Casey heard about him or saw him do.

Sam thought Derek was just worried about her ratting him out to their parents but that couldn't be true anymore.

He cared what she thought of him.

Because Casey was done, Sam tossed the pregnancy test on the counter to be rung up. The cute cashier blushed when she had to tell him the total and take his money.

But, then, her gaze flittered away from him to Derek. _Figures!_

Sam rolled his eyes.

"You're Derek Venturi, aren't you? You dated my little sister, Sandra, a few years ago," she said. Her voice got a little colder towards the end. Apparently remembering whatever horrible way that Derek had ended the relationship.

Sam saw the worried peek at Casey again. _Huh? He cares an awful lot about what she thinks of him_.

"Um… right. How is Sandy?"

"It was _Sandra_ not _Sandy_ and she's fine. You really broke her heart though. She cried for weeks and had to see a counselor."

Something in the girl's biting speech caught Casey back from her dumbfounded trance over the pregnancy test Sam was buying. "What?" she asked Derek. "Who had to see a counselor?"

"Nothing, Case." Derek took her hand and dragged her towards the exit.

Casey glanced behind to see that Sam was following. As usual, she'd missed all the clues that would have told any _normal_ person to mind their own fucking business. "Sam if you need anything…"

Thankfully, Derek tugged her more forcefully ahead. "Let it alone, Casey. You'll see him tomorrow at graduation."

Sam got into his jeep and watched the two of them argue their way into Derek's beaten up car.

He wished he could still feel the envy over Casey taking valedictorian away from him. He wanted to be care free and buying ice cream on this night.

Kendra was waiting for him back at her sister's place with her mind made up and his future in her hands.

He'd gotten a full ride academic scholarship to Toronto but Kendra could only get into Western and her grades there were shit.

If he stayed with her then he wouldn't be leaving London after-all.

Sam let his head rest against the back of the seat, closed his eyes and took a very deep breath. _This cannot be happening_. But it was happening.

Sam opened his eyes again.

Then he started the jeep up and pulled out, into the dark.


	6. Chapter 6

. . .

**Chapter 6 – Truman**

. . .

"…but the site he found has all these awesome quotes and it's been really helpful. I might actually end up getting some sleep tonight after all." Casey's voice trailed off in Truman's ear and he heard her breathing quietly into the phone.

She only rambled like that from nerves_. She was nervous?_

He rubbed at his bottom lip, watched her window. She had her light on and her blind open. He could see her sitting at her computer as she talked. She wasn't lying to him or anything. _She never lies._ Casey pulled at the ends of one of her pigtails and bit her own lip. She _looked_ nervous, too.

He wondered how she would feel if he told her he was parked across the street and watching her. It might creep her out.

He hadn't meant it in a creepy way, exactly.

He'd been driving around and waiting for her to call him back. He'd come over at first to see her, drop by, find out what she was up to. _That's a normal thing to do;_ _isn't it?_

But he'd paused too long, here in the car and, then he realized that she _didn't want_ him to come over. She had that speech to write.

"Are you still there, Truman?" She sounded irritated instead of nervous now. Truman rubbed at his lip again, watched her scowl as she talked to him.

"I'm still here."

"Well, did you hear anything I just said."

"Of course I did, Casey."

He could hear the disdain in his voice but he couldn't help it. "Derek helped you find a bunch of quotes on some website." He watched Casey frown; she pulled at her hair again. Why did it feel so good whenever he reduced her to this … this nervous, insecure version of herself?

"That Derek is one really helpful guy isn't he?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing."

The light in Derek's room was on too. While Truman could perfectly visualize the parts of Casey's room he couldn't see through the window, he had not idea what her stepbrother's room looked like.

Every time he'd been over, Derek had been home, in his room, door closed, music playing softly … just soft enough to hear through the wall he shared with Casey.

_That son of a bitch. _ Casey's stepbrother eavesdropped and watched the two of them constantly. _Asshole._

Derek didn't even try to hide that he hated him – he'd hated him from the moment he'd deciphered Truman's plan to get Casey's attention.

When Casey caught Truman with her cousin, Derek's eyes had glittered like crystal with his suppressed desire to beat him down to a pulp.

But Casey had been there. She'd saved Truman without even realizing it – Derek always wanted to look like the good guy with his stepsister. _Too bad she never saw it that way._ Truman smirked.

He hated Derek too.

Truman watched Casey pull the elastics from her hair and shake the pigtails loose. She bit at the end of a lock of hair. He smiled. "Truman? Are you mad at me?"

His smile tightened. "Why would I be mad at you, Casey? You haven't done anything that would make me mad, right?"

Casey swiped at her face with one hand. _She was crying?_

_She was. _

Truman knew that she had been out all night with her stepbrother. And he wasn't blind. That idiot, Emily might not see what was really going on with the two of them but Truman had put it all together the first time Derek had confronted him over the girls that he was dating and the rating system bullshit.

Derek wanted her.

Casey probably wanted him too, but she would never find that piece of information in all the tangle of feelings and responsibilities and ambitions that made up her personality.

Casey was a good person and she always did the right thing. It was why Truman loved her … whatever "love" was.

But he needed her; she was his touchstone. He couldn't even _see_ good or right without recognizing it through her.

He'd probably punished her enough for whatever she'd done that night with Derek. No way had she cheated on him.

Casey had standards and rules and she wouldn't let herself do that. Maybe that was why she was crying right now? Knowing Casey, she probably had no better idea of the reason for her tears than he did.

Truman watched her wipe more tears away. He didn't want her to start sobbing because then Derek would hear – he was probably listening right now as a matter of fact.

"Well, don't worry about your speech. I'm sure you'll do great. Tomorrow's your big day."

He'd heard that loser Paul Greeby say that to her in the hallway – _"Tomorrow's the big day; isn't is Casey?"_ She'd looked so happy when he said it.

"Okay," she said. Her voice sounded a little hoarse. If he wasn't watching her would he even know she was crying? If he _did_ know, then should he say something about it?

"I'll see you at graduation, baby. Love you." He tried to sound caring and sweet.

"Bye," she whispered. She smiled a little but she was back to swiping tears off her face.

Truman saw a shadow fall across her – someone had come into her room and was standing over her.

_Derek? _ Probably.

Truman sighed and started the car. _How much of this did he need to watch, anyway?_

Soon, she would leave for Kingston and he would go to Halifax.

His father had donated enough money to King's College that they were going to break ground on a new building named after him: _The Arthur French Building of International Business Studies_.

But fucking King's College had still only begrudgingly let Truman join the freshman class. He'd gotten kicked out of three expensive prep schools, had barely skirted prison time for stealing the car, wrecking the car, injuring two people in the car he wrecked into – _and horrors of all horrors_ – he now had a public school diploma.

But money cures all ills. King's really wanted that new building.

Now he was expected to study finance and international business laws.

Eventually he would take over his father's business and marry the cold hearted bitchy daughter of his mother's best friend – a truly insufferable girl but a _rich_ girl from a "good" family.

Truman started circling London again.

His parents thought he had gone over to Casey's house to break things off with her – actually they had _instructed_ him to do so. Amazing how even divorce didn't rattle the rigid plans and expectations that they had for his life!

He'd been filled with hope when the marriage dissolved because his father's mistress gave birth to twins and his mother's pill problem required she withdraw from society for an extended "holiday".

Truman snorted – unsure if he laughed at his mother's transparent excuses or his own naïve belief that things for him would change?

Truman pulled in front of a little yellow house near the edge of a warehouse district, Amy Summer's house.

Lights were all out but that didn't mean much. Her mother had a late night waitress job and her dad was a truck driver – never home.

Plus, Amy was always up for a little late-night get together. He'd hit her up for sex during the brief breakup from Casey – and once he'd been back to a routine of regular sex he couldn't give it up just to be with his pure as snow girlfriend again.

Truman locked the BMW and jogged up to Amy's door. Amy's mother always kept a copy of the key under the front mat, so he just let himself inside with it.

"Who's there?" Amy had on her way too tight _Camp PomPom_ t-shirt from middle school (She'd told him the whole boring story of getting into the camp on some kind of gymnastics scholarship one night after they lay together) and little boy shorts.

"Hey, baby," he slid his arms around her and ran his tongue over the side of her neck.

Truman thought about how he had just called Casey by the same pet name.

He ran his hands under Amy's shirt and let her unbutton his own, but couldn't avoid thinking how much he would rather be sitting chastely beside his actual girlfriend.

"You didn't tell me you were coming by tonight," Amy purred. "I thought you would be spending time playing Scrabble with your boring Miss Perfect, or maybe helping her practice her acceptance speech for being the biggest loser of the graduating class."

"Come on, Amy. Don't talk about her like that." Truman started to push the boy shorts down her thighs. She wasn't wearing any underwear – _perfect._

"Why shouldn't I talk about her? When are you going to dump her, anyway? You said she just needed closure – that you were worried she was going to kill herself or something …"

_That's what I said?_ Truman couldn't keep from laughing out loud. He started to undo his belt buckle. "Let's go to the bedroom."

Amy stepped out of the boy shorts. She pulled the tight t-shirt over her head. "You ARE going to break up with Klutzilla, right?"

She tossed her blond hair over her shoulders. "I can't wait to see her sad little pout face when she realizes that, this time, _I _took _her_ boyfriend. Pay back is a bitch isn't it?"

Amy smiled at him as she led Truman back into her bedroom.

_Payback certainly could be a bitch_, he echoed her words in this thoughts. He had no intention of breaking up with Casey McDonald.

He would do whatever it took to keep Casey on a string – even if it meant dipping into his trusts to fly her down to Halifax or fly himself to Kingston.

Girls like Amy could be replaced so easily when you drove the right car and wore the right clothes, had the right amount of cash on you all the time.

He'd find a new Amy in college.

_A new Casey though? _ Someone smart and good and who cared about people – cared about _him_ – that would be much harder.

Maybe even impossible.


	7. Chapter 7

. . .

Chapter 7 -- Lizzie

"Casey?"

Lizzie's older sister turned a too bright, too wide-eyed and unnaturally cheerful smile on her. " Are you okay, Casey?"

"Sure, I'm fine Lizzard!" Casey made a little snorting laugh that always meant she was lying. "I'm just about to give the most important speech of my life! Why wouldn't I be fine? I'm perfectly fine."

"Ummm… okay." Lizzie really wished her mother was paying better attention to what was happening in the back seat of the car. Instead, Nora fixated on how ugly she thought her maternity clothes looked on her and how uncomfortable the seat belt felt strapped across her chest and Lizzie's stepdad said soothing things to her. Nora didn't even notice that George had run a stop sign and stopped for another in the middle of the intersection.

Lizzie sighed; calming down Casey and deciphering Marti's sudden baby phase appeared to be on her shoulders.

Because Edwin and Derek left early to get things in place for the prank, it was actually quite roomy in George's car.

So, theoretically, Casey _could be_ really happy to not be squished as she rode to graduation. Lizzie _could_ pretend to take all those "fines" as genuine. _Too bad I know better,_ Lizzie thought.

_It's like a dance competition. You just need to reassure her that it doesn't matter how she does – you still think she is the greatest big sister in the entire world and that for you she will always be the best dancer … okay that wouldn't work …_

_For you she will always be the best valedictorian speech giver …_ hmmmm…

"Lizzie?" Casey looked suddenly pensive. "You don't know anything about the graduation prank Derek is doing, do you?"

"What graduation prank?"

Casey raised an eyebrow at her.

"I might know a little."

George glanced back at them. "Did one of you say something about a graduation prank. Please tell me that isn't what Derek is up to this morning!"

Lizzie squeaked, "I didn't say anything!" Edwin and Derek would kill her if she told. The only reason Derek had been slightly okay with her knowing was so Lizzie could calm down Casey if she started freaking out about it.

Lizzie glanced at Casey and her big sister must have read a little of the situation in her face. She looked less pensive and more aware of her surroundings.

"George, you should really pay more attention to the road when you drive. You already lost your license once," Casey chided.

George turned his eyes on the road again and Lizzie's mom beamed a smile back at Casey. Lizzie wanted to roll her eyes.

But she didn't. She'd promised Derek that she would keep her sister from worrying about the prank before she had to give the speech.

Lizzie leaned over and whispered in her sister's ear. "Nothing happens until after you do the speech and it doesn't interfere with you getting a diploma either."

Casey scowled, "It better not."

"Don't worry."

_Oops._ Now Casey was reminded to worry. Lizzie watched her sister bite at her lip and mess with her perfectly straightened hair.

_Distract her. _

_But distract her with what? _

Lizzie looked over at Marti – her little stepsister was curled against the door and sucking her thumb. Gross. Lizzie thought she had quit that disgusting habit three years ago! The new baby was making Marti act like a freak!

_Oh yeah_ … something had been bothering Lizzie since the night before and that conversation with Edwin. "Hey, Casey?"

She leaned in to Casey's ear again. Her sister smelled like gardenias and vanilla. Lizzie paused a moment to take a comforting sniff of that familiar combination.

She hoped Casey wouldn't take that scholarship to Queens and leave her, leave their home. Lizzie couldn't imagine life without Casey to bounce things off of, to imitate, to ask for help.

"What is it, Liz?"

"Um…" Lizzie darted a glance at her stepdad and her mom. Now, they were completely engrossed in their own conversation about how to reconfigure all the bedrooms once the baby came.

"Did you know that Derek and Edwin already knew about the baby when Mom told us?"

_Well, that definitely was distracting!_ Casey turned startled eyes on her.

"They did?"

"That was why Derek tried to get you back together with Truman. He thought it would make him a good brother or something if he found you a prom date. I guess it was kind of nice of him in a way, but I still am mad that he and Edwin …"

Casey's face had flushed the way it did when she was really angry or upset.

So she was mad about their stepbrothers keeping that secret too! _Good! Casey would yell at them._

Lizzie hadn't been sure if she had anything to be mad at or not. Edwin had seemed to think "not".

"Derek thought getting me back together with Truman would make him _a really good brother_? He said that? He wants to be a _good brother_ to me?"

So was she mad, or upset? Lizzie couldn't decipher. The "brother" part was all Casey seemed to hear.

_I shouldn't have told her like that,_ Lizzie realized. _Of course_ Casey would focus on the "brother" part of what she'd said. Casey didn't want Derek as her brother. She hated him. She _had _to hate him or …

Lizzie didn't want to think about it.

_Why couldn't things stay the same forever?_

Lizzie wanted all of them to go on living in mostly happy chaos: She and Edwin playing marathons of Clue, and collecting bugs, and watching old Godzilla movies.

Marti could stay the baby, and Lizzie would go on playing baby games with her: forts out of chairs and blankets, helping her decorate the driveway with sidewalk chalk.

Derek and Casey would go on fighting out the thing between them – dragging everyone in the house into the middle as they pushed each other safely away.

But it couldn't stay the same forever – nothing stays the same.

Now, she and Edwin felt awkward around each other – always checking each other's reactions and testing out what _could_ be said and _couldn't_ be said.

Marti was going to be a big sister – something she apparently didn't want at all.

Derek and Casey were being nice to each other – or having heated arguments like the one last night after her sister hung up with Truman.

"_He's an asshole! What did he say to you? He made you cry again!"_

"_Just leave it alone, Derek. It doesn't have anything to do with you! It's none of your business!"_

"_I'm making it my business." _

Casey had seen Lizzie in the hallway and closed her door. But Lizzie hadn't moved.

Edwin came down the stairs and he and Lizzie had watched each other for a moment before each looked away to listen alone.

It was harder to hear with the door closed_. _

_The next time something was clear was when Casey yelled, "You told me to give him another chance!" _

"_I told you to let him take you to prom." _

"_So you could take Emily." _

"_Exactly. That was about prom – not getting back together with that piece of shit. You were supposed to go to prom. Only prom!" _

"_You asked Emily to be your girlfriend!"_

"_What the fuck does that have to do with anything?" _

Lizzie had snuck another glance at Edwin. _Did he know? Did Derek? Asking Emily to be his girlfriend has a lot to do with it. Was Casey going to say that? _

_Lizzie could tell by the fright in Edwin's eyes that he was thinking the very same things. _

But it was too muffled and Lizzie couldn't make out the next part until Derek raised his voice again_, "You know what, Case? I can't wait until this whole thing explodes in your face. I don't care what that spoiled fuck says to you about long distance. He is going to Halifax and you are going to Kingston and there is NO WAY he will be able to keep his dick in his pants that far away from you." _

"_We're going to see each other on the weekends."_

Derek had made a loud, scornful laugh_, "Every weekend. Sure."_

"_He has money, you know. He said he would fly me down." _

_Silence – then…_

"_Over my dead body." _Casey's door slammed open. Derek shot a death glares at Lizzie for listening in, and then another at Edwin. The younger siblings both ran for their rooms.

Casey screeched behind him,_ "You aren't involved, Derek!"_

"_It isn't going to happen, Case," _Lizzie heard Derek yell back at her, just before he slammed his own door.

Now Casey watched her sister's profile against the dirty car window. She looked so sad.

"Derek might not have said the brother part. That might have been something Edwin just said."

Casey didn't meet her eyes and Lizzie didn't know what to make of that. Her older sister seemed … broken.

"Edwin said that Derek was thinking of breaking up with Emily."

Casey turned watery blue eyes on her now. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because …" _Could she say it? Was that allowed now or not?_ "Umm…because …" Lizzie stammered. "I thought it would make you happy," she finished lamely.

Casey wiped a hand across her eyes, "Oh God, Lizzie, that doesn't make me happy at all."

Casey took a big trembling breath and straightened up in her car seat. She smoothed her hair down and composed her face back into the mask of cheerful confidence.

They turned into the school and George started to maneuver the car into a space way too small for it.

Casey leaned over to Lizzie's ear again and Lizzie braced herself for whatever Casey would say – because her older sister must know that Lizzie could see right through this whole Miss Perfect Valedictorian act that she was putting on. Casey would tell her – _Lizzie_ – the truth.

"I really don't think that you and Edwin should be talking about the two of us – gossiping really – about your older siblings like you do. And you shouldn't listen in, or spy on us either." _What?_

Lizzie's mouth dropped open. _She can't be serious_.

But she did _look_ serious.

Casey's hands folded in her lap and her face cocked a little to one side, like she was Grandma Susan when she explained table manners to them or primly reminded them, that _a lady_ doesn't swear in public.

"I'm not trying to criticize you, Lizzie. But Derek and I are adults now and we have problems that are … different from Edwin's or your …experiences. Do you understand?"

The last part was almost gentle, almost the Casey who Lizzie painted nails with, and baked cookies with, but only _almost_.

Lizzie nodded. _So this was it:_ Change.

Her mom and George both squeezed out of the car – the parking space really was way too small. Casey smoothed the blue satin graduation robe she wore when she squeezed out beside them. The three of them started towards the high school.

No one was waiting for Marti, checking to make sure that she got out okay, so Lizzie did. Marti tried to put her thumb back into her mouth but Lizzie hit it away.

Marti looked up at her, surprised.

"You're going to be one of the big kids now Marti, like _me._ Casey's all grown up now, so you and I are the big sisters…"

Lizzie shifted her voice to be gentle about it – like Casey had been with her, "Do you understand?"

Marti stared at Lizzie with big wondering eyes, "Okay, Lizzie."

The two of them followed their parents and Casey into the school.

TBC


	8. Chapter 8

. . . .

Chapter 8 – **Ralph**

. . . .

"We make all these plans and we hope we're doing the right thing but we have no idea. But maybe it's better to do _something_ and make a mistake than do _nothing_ and regret it."

_Yeah._ Ralph nodded along to Casey's words. _She's really smart. And super pretty too_. Ralph suppressed a sigh. _This is the best Valhalla speech I've ever heard. Wait – it isn't Valhalla… _

Valhalla was where He-Man lived.

_Oh yeah, vala-dictator speech. That's it._

Of course, he only had one other speech to compare it to – at his cousin's graduation from St. Joseph's Prep. The guy giving that speech had been a total dweeb and had all these quotes from various Catholic popes – in Latin even. _Show off._

From where he and Sam stood at the back of the auditorium, they could see everyone in the crowd of families and graduates.

His cousin hadn't bothered to come to Ralph's graduation, he noticed. The only extended family there was his grandma. Ralph shrugged it off. His mom's brother and his family were all snobs, anyway.

His uncle was even friends with the snooty parents of that loser Casey dated, and Truman French's family was all kinds of messed up!

Casey's speech ended and Ralph clapped.

Sam nudged him. _Oh yeah – stage one of the prank. _

Ralph and Sam both stood up. They had to be ready to open the doors after Derek's little brother did his thing. _Piece of cake._

Ralph caught his grandma glancing back at him and he gave her a thumbs up. Last summer when Nana had her hip operation Ralph had come over every day to make her lunch and clean up around the house. He'd stayed over a few nights a week too, just in case she needed anything.

She was a cool grandma.

When his uncle had been busy bragging up Ralph's cousin's sky-high grades and college acceptances, his grandma had patted Ralph's knee. She'd shook her head and said, "I just wish they all had turned out like this young man here."

Ralph's uncle had made a face like he'd bitten into a piece of his wife's dreaded Christmas fruitcake.

Ralph smiled at the memory.

_Whoops – he better pay attention here …_

"Now?" he whispered to Sam.

Sam shook his head, "Wait."

Something had changed in Sam, Ralph noticed. He seemed … not _sad_ … just really _serious_, lately. Ralph had kinda been surprised Sam had even shown up early that morning to help set the prank.

Ralph tried to puzzle out the mood switch in his pal. First there was the big let down about Casey getting to be the vala-dictator, and Sam had been kind of weirdly pissed at Derek about that too.

But now Sam was in a fight or something with Kendra. Or they had just made up from a fight.

Sam took the time to walk Kendra to her seat in the auditorium – it was really cool that she came to watch them – she wasn't much of a school person. _Kinda like me, _Ralph thought.

Then, Sam had acted all careful around her: taken her coat and folded it across the back of the chair for her, asked if she needed anything else. _Yep._ He must have done something wrong and was doing some major butt kissing to make up for it. _Girls! _ Ralph had totally been there.

"Okay, now!"

The both rushed forward to open the doors so Edwin could escape.

Ralph chuckled and went to high-five Sam, but his friend wasn't paying attention. Sam had already started searching the audience for Kendra. "Okay?" Sam mouthed.

Kendra smiled and nodded.

Sam seemed to relax a little.

"Dude, you're acting a lot like a _boyfriend_ for someone who told me he was just getting some…"

"Don't finish that sentence."

Ralph closed his mouth. He looked at the tense set of Sam's shoulders and the super straight posture of his normally slouching, and good-natured friend. "Dude, what is _wrong?_ You aren't still mad about not being dictator right? Casey did okay, but giving that speech really didn't look very … _fun_."

Sam glanced over, looked Ralph up and down like he'd never seen him before. "Dude, it's _me_ – _Ralph_. We've been friends since pre-school."

Sam deflated, slouched back into his normal stance, lost the … mature … yeah that was the word …_mature_ aura that had been _suffocatin_g the guy Ralph knew. Man, did maturity really need to look so _painful_?

"Are you and Amanda staying together or breaking up before the fall?" Sam blurted.

_Huh?_ "Did Amanda say she wanted to break up with me before the fall? Why _the fall_? Dude, is there an old boyfriend coming back or something?" Ralph tried to remember if Amanda had ever mentioned an old boyfriend … she'd had a crush on Derek in elementary school, but so did every girl in their class. _Right?_

Sam snapped his fingers in Ralph's face, "Ralph! I'm talking about when she goes to Alberta, for _college_. Are you doing the long distance thing? Breaking up? Going with her? Which one are you guys doing?"

Ralph hadn't even thought about it. _I guess those are the choices, aren't they?_ Ralph hadn't applied to college. He planned on working longer hours at the music store, and maybe take on a few more students for private drum lessons.

High school had been hard – and he'd barely graduated. Why would he want to subject himself to _more_ of that? _School sucked_.

Oh but back to the relationship thing …

"I guess it's up to Amanda." Sam's face crumpled a little. _Wow. This is what a great friend could be. He really cared if you were going to stay with your girlfriend or not… _No, wait. They'd been talking about Kendra, right?

Sam wanted _advice!_ Now Ralph snapped his fingers in front of Sam's distant expression.

"Hey, it doesn't have to be all up to _the girl_ you know … I got stuff I want to do _here_. I got my music and my grandma. No way am I going to _Alberta._"

Ralph shook his head and placed a hand on Sam's shoulder.

_This advice thing was kind of cool._ It made him feel …wise …like that little green swamp dude in Star Wars. "Amanda has to follow her dream, ya know? But I have to follow mine too."

And, it really _was_ his _dream_ to play his drums and help spread the love of an awesome beat to other cool kids, like he had been.

"We might not be boyfriend and girlfriend anymore but we got a connection; you know, a _link._ It's a _good_ link right now, but if I went with her and wasn't happy, or she stayed with me and wasn't happy, them that link would be a _bad_ link. That wouldn't be cool."

Sam watched him with a kind of intensity that people didn't usually have when Ralph spoke. Except for the kids he gave drum lessons to – sometimes they looked at him like this. _Huh._

"Listen, Sam, right now you got what you think you should do … your doing the song …"

Sam drew back and raised an eyebrow.

"Go with me on this. So you're doing your song … and it's what's all written out on the sheet music for you. You got the plan that everyone follows and that's cool."

Ralph started a beat in the air with two imaginary drumsticks.

"But what would be _really _cool, is if you kind of took that music someone else wrote out and … gave it your own twist…played it the way that makes the most of _your _special talents."

Ralph started to twirl one of the imaginary drum sticks and crossed a hand over so that the other invisible stick took the place of the first stick.

"Long term, you'll see that's what's best for _you_, and what's best for _your band_ too. Then you know you've really _matured_ as a drummer."

Ralph smiled into the air, eyes closed, and hit both invisible sticks on and equally invisible stack of cymbals.

Down below, the principal had called Truman French's name for his diploma. _Casey really needed to break up with that guy. He was bad news. _

Ralph looked over at Sam to say as much, but his friend gaped at him: frozen, eyes wide, marveling at Ralph. "Dude, you okay?"

Sam swallowed and nodded, "You're a really smart guy, Ralph."

Ralph smiled back at him, "Thanks, dude."

Ralph's name was called, and right behind him Sam got his own diploma.

_Cool._ Ralph winked at his grandma as he left the stage. She winked back.

_Stage two of the prank should be going down any second now._ The principal said something about "Last but not least" and all the lights went out.

_Cool. _Derek's voice announced his own name over the speakers and he appeared on stage under a spotlight. The projector screen unfurled behind him with a projection of his senior picture. Silence in the auditorium. Derek glanced at Casey.

Ralph heard her say his name "Derek". She sounded … _impressed_.

For once Derek's stepsister was going to play along! _Finally!_ The principal might have been telling the truth when he said they were all surprised Ralph had graduated. Hell, Ralph was surprised he graduated!

But it didn't take a knockout GPA to know that all Derek's pranks for the last three years were reaching for this exact moment: Casey acknowledging that Derek had really pulled a good one. Derek's smile got a little bigger.

Ralph started to chant Derek's name and Sam joined in. Then, everyone else joined in too.

_Cool._

. . .

(tbc)


	9. Chapter 9

. . .

Chapter 9 – Nora

. .

_So Dennis didn't bother to come to Casey's graduation… _ Nora sighed. She steeled herself against letting irritation with her ex-husband leak into the moment. Her oldest daughter had just graduated high school at the top of her class! She shouldn't be feeling anything but pride right now!

Granted, said graduation ended in a mess of dancing, cheering and general Derek-chaos. But Nora had developed a love for the unpredictability of life while raising five children.

Once the lights went up and the impromptu celebration ended, all the teens crowded into the audience of family and friends. Most of them had restaurant reservations or family parties to get to, so the activity in the auditorium was a little frantic. Nora felt nauseous. Was Marti wearing her Super Grape! perfume again? I thought I hid that stuff.

"Oh, there are the kids!" George pointed into a thick part of the crowd, then turned back to her with a smile. He must have read something in Nora's face that said – SICK – because the smile drooped and he rubbed her back. "How are you doing, honey?"

He was such a sweet man.

Dennis had only ever acted inconvenienced by her pregnancies. "_Can you at least try and act like you aren't about to vomit!" _He'd hissed at her when they went to the dinner party a partner in his firm gave.

George would never do something like that. Nora smiled at her husband. "I'll be okay, Georgie. But lets try and hurry them along." She leaned in to whisper in his ear, "Yell at the boys later."

George gave her the same knowing smirk Nora's oldest stepson had inherited and made his own.

"Mom!"

"Dad!"

Casey had Derek by the arm to drag him from their swarming classmates. Nora was relieved that she didn't look upset. Her stepson had managed to make graduation all about him which annoyed Nora some, but she supposed if it didn't bother her daughter, then it shouldn't bother her.

Casey seemed to have made peace with Derek in the last year—Nora had worried that her first year of marriage to George might also be her last if her daughter stayed as unhappy as she'd obviously been those first months of living in London. It had taken a while for Nora to trust the two teens to work things out themselves.

Derek pushed every button her daughter had, and Nora didn't at first realize that Derek's uncanny ability to know just how to torment Casey also gave him enough insight to know just how to rectify things when he'd pushed those buttons with a little too much force. Derek wasn't a bad kid, Nora finally decided. He watched out for her daughter, took care of her and protected her, despite being unable to quit harassing her himself.

"Can you believe, Derek got away with that? I was afraid Mr. Lassiter was going to take away his diploma," Casey gushed. Her cheeks were red and her hair a little mussed.

Derek didn't look worried in the least; he was puffed up with success over his prank. "Lassiter can't take away my diploma because of a prank, Case." Derek threw an arm around her shoulders and shook his head at her. "We're talking about _the master_ here. You need to have a little faith, Case." Then Derek cut a quick look towards his father. "I take NO responsibility for that thing Edwin did, by the way."

Nora nudged George in the back to remind him that any lecturing needed to happen once they were safely out of the crowded auditorium. Another waft of Super Grape! overcame her. "Marti, sweetie, are you wearing that purple perfume today?"

"Yes! Daphne hid it in the spice cabinet! Silly Daphne!"

Nora gave her little stepdaughter a tight smile and swallowed the saliva pooling in her mouth. George started rubbing her back again.

"Okay, kids! Lets get out of here and go to the restaurant before they give away our table! Derek, you're driving yourself and Edwin right?"

Casey seemed to have caught her breath from dragging her stepbrother away from all his admirers. She was looking around the auditorium, "Is Dad meeting us there?" Her voice sounded reedy and thin. She already knew the answer, of course.

Nora felt the tension she'd been trying to keep at bay all morning flare into a headache. "He did write in his card that he might not be able to get away," Nora reminded her daughter. She hated this. Dennis _always_ left her to do his dirty work and explain to the girls why he wasn't where he promised he would be—why didn't he just tell her in the card that he wasn't coming? Why did he have to keep her hopeful until the actual ceremony?

Nora was glad to see Derek's arm tighten around Casey. He looked livid. Even his own flakey mother had crept in at the end of the graduation ceremony. Abbey watched a little of the ending chaos on stage and then pantomimed "Waiting at the restaurant" to Nora before slipping back out.

Nora sighed again. _It must be nice to be the irresponsible parent. She wished to hell she wasn't feeling every ounce of her daughter's disappointment with her father right now, or excruciatingly aware of her stepson's exasperation with his mother's consistent carelessness. "Casey? Are you okay? Did you hear me?"_

"Dad might be at the restaurant already," Casey said looking up at Nora.

_Dennis—you bastard!_ "I don't think so, honey."

"But maybe he …"

"No Casey. He isn't here. I'm sorry."

Casey nodded, clearly embarrassed, eyes shining and wet. "Well, that's okay." Her beautiful daughter took a breath, composed herself with a false smile. While the rest of their family looked obviously relieved by her reaction, both Derek and Nora winced.

"But you know, I think that I might just ride with Derek and Edwin…I…I didn't get a chance to say goodbye to Emily and I wanted to try and catch …umm…some other people…" Casey's voice shook.

Derek jumped in to save her, "Yeah. I'll drive Casey and Edwin," he only looked at his father when he spoke. Nora felt like he was avoiding making eye contact with her.

George glanced over their heads to give a stern point towards Edwin as his younger son emerged from the crowd. "You and I need to talk," George threatened. Nora poked him in the back.

"Talk later." he added.

"I'm hungry!" Marti piped up. She had her hand in Lizzie's hand.

Lizzie had let the younger girl sit on her lap for most of the graduation ceremony while the two of them whispered back and forth. They had reminded Nora of when Lizzie had been the little sister and Casey had been the one sharing her lap and secrets.

Just then, Nora caught Derek's eyes and saw what he had been hiding from her—_blame_. Her words, crushing the last of Casey's hope that her father might still show up had hurt Casey, and Derek blamed Nora for some of that.

Derek had given Nora a similar look when Casey opened her father's graduation card at dinner the night before. He'd known, along with Nora, what Casey had been in denial about—Dennis wasn't going to show.

Nora knew that Derek expected _her_ to call Dennis and somehow force him to come to Casey's graduation. But Nora also knew that Dennis would be screening his calls for exactly this reason. She'd tried to guilt him into being a better father plenty of times until she'd just plain gotten worn down by the process. If Derek wanted to try, he could be her guest! Nora was pretty sure that Dennis had blocked Derek's cell number since getting called back from the airport by him two years ago.

"Well, I guess if that's okay with you?" George was saying to her. Nora focued back on the conversation – _Casey riding with Derek and Edwin_… "That would be fine," Nora said. "Just don't be late to the restaurant."

Now Derek's eyes were trained back on her. Definitely blame.

_It was so unfair! If her stepson only knew how many times Nora had been forced to be the bearer of grim truth regarding Dennis!_

There was no kind way to cushion things after all the many ways her ex-husband had let them down over the years. She'd run out of ways to spin things so that it wasn't obvious Dennis just didn't care enough to be around.

Nora watched Derek rub at Casey's arm. At the same time, his father rubbed Nora's back. Her stepson's freckled hand moved gently against her daughter's skin, his arm draped protectively over her shoulders, pulling her closer to his body. The same sweet concern was in Derek's face that George had been shooting Nora's way all day.

_Oh. .. _

"You have your jacket? Your purse?" Derek whispered to her. Casey nodded, looking numb and spaced out. Lizzie handed Casey's things to her and Derek draped the jacket over her shoulders, grasped Casey's hand.

_Oh…_

Nora supposed she should feel a little more shocked. That explains a lot –in a way.

Derek flashed Nora a perfunctory smile and nod. _I'll handle this; I've got her_, his look said.

Nora realized that while she'd been studying her daughter and stepson, George had draped her own jacket over her shoulders. The realization made her feel better about what she suspected between Casey and Derek.

Nora gave a sad smile towards her stepson; her daughter was busy blinking back tears, head drooping towards the ground. "Thanks, Derek" Nora told him.

Derek would be a sweet, thoughtful man, just like his father.

And Casey would be able to appreciate that—especially after loving a man like Dennis Mcdonald.

. . .

(tbc)


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10 – Kendra

The post-graduation punch and cookie reception served as more of a meeting point between families and graduates than an actual party.

Kendra watched Truman flash a quick wave at Casey when as his parents led him out the door. They were probably going someplace completely dreamy like the Country Club for lunch. Mrs. French's taupe silk suit was a Philip Lim—Kendra recognized it at once because his mother wore the same animal print blouse and leather gloves that the runway model had worn. _Oh! Very nice._

Kendra loved, loved, loved that the French's were unimpressed by Casey, _disapproving_ even.

Not that Kendra herself didn't like Casey—_because Casey was just great!_

But it _was_ nice that _someone_ didn't like Casey—_because Casey was also just …ugh. _

_And her clothes! Double, even TRIPPLE ugh! _

Derek scowled after Truman's wave. He looked pinned to Casey's side, totally over his big moment during the ceremony and watching his stepsister like a hawk. Nothing unusual—Derek pulled out the protective stepbrother act more and more over the last several years.

_How did Casey stand it?_ Sam was driving her a little nuts with all his hovering since she'd gotten pregnant.

Sam watched her from the line for punch and cookies. She gave him a little wave.

Max Miller was holding up the line because he was chatting up Amy, his ex-girlfriend. Amy's boots were Nine West Vintage American Collection – _hmmmm…not bad._ They didn't match her Betsy Johnson dress—_which had to be at least five years old. Terrible! _

Max ran a finger along Amy's arm and gave her his ducked head smile. _Oh gross!_ Kendra could not believe that smile had worked on her at one time! She'd slept with him twice while he and Casey dated. _"I should really feel bad about that!_" Kendra scolded herself.

As penance, she made herself reassess Casey's outfit. _Okay the purse wasn't too bad. A knock-off of a Kooba, maybe? Probably from _…_Claires? Awful! Quadruple ugh!_ She would have to find a different way to be nice to Casey!

The post-graduation reception was always held right after the ceremony, in the stark, impersonal lobby between the auditorium and gymnasium – a smattering of metal folding chairs opened around the room and a blue and gold paper covered table displaying the cookies and punch were the only hints towards the possibility of a party.

_Totally depressing! _

_Oh! and there's Emily Davis …wearing head to toe Ralph Lauren Blue Label and making it all look like it came from Charlotte Russe. What a waste of a great clothing allowance! _

_Emily, Emily, Emily…abdominal crunches, every heard of those? Don't even look at that cookie table! _

When Emily got in line behind Sam, Kendra threw her arms up in surrender.

If Kendra's parents were willing to drop the kind of bank on clothes that Emily's parents did—she would _definitely_ diet to wear them right!

Everyone was putting on jackets and taking quick pictures before scurrying out the door.

Last year Kendra had been a little drunk at graduation and trying to bow out of a really lame luncheon at her Aunt Ruby's house to go get even drunker at a keg party the football team was hosting. She smiled to herself at the memory, _How fun had that been? Sooo fun! _

Sam made his way back to her carrying two cups of punch. He handed one to her.

"No cookies?" Kendra pouted.

"They only had chocolate chip and I know how you hate chocolate."

_Aw, what a sweetie!_ But um… "I don't actually hate chocolate. Just these last couple weeks. I think it's the..." Kendra leaned into him, "the _You Know What_," she whispered.

Sam nodded, looking panicked. "Sorry."

Kendra shrugged. "No biggie."

_Oh that creepy, poetry writing boy, Noel was looking her way._ She couldn't believe Casey and Derek had tried to set her up with him at one time! _He…he…wrote poetry! _She shuddered. That must be his mom with him—_Birkenstock sandals with a thrift store skirt (of course!). _

And the tall gawky girl beside him, with the extremely unfortunate nose, probably was a younger sister. _Lets see…Jcrew cashmere shell (used, maybe, but cared for…), denim pencil skirt, ballet flats…_ _Oh my god!_ _That poor fashionable child must be trapped in her family of artistic freaks! _

Kendra ignored the polite smile Noel sent her and focused her energy on his younger sister, caught the girl's eye and smiled. The girl blushed—_not exactly flattering with that narrow bone structure_—but Kendra wasn't going to hold it against her.

"_Nice sweater_," Kendra mouthed.

The girl blushed again. _Oh no, the blush really wasn't at all flattering now that it had darkened._ Kendra politely looked away.

Sam took a gulp of the punch, made a face, and then spit it back into the plastic cup. He took Kendra's cup out of her hand. "It's spiked." He set both the cups on a folding chair and pulled Kendra away from them like they were nuclear waste products. "Who spikes the punch at a reception? This isn't even a real party!"

Kendra thought he sounded just the way her father had last year when _he'd _discovered alcohol in the punch.

"My classmates are all idiots," Sam grumbled.

Kendra raised her eyebrows, tried to look innocent. But she couldn't keep the laughter that bubbled inside her throat from coming out. So _this year_, she hadn't done a thing to the punch, but _the year before_ she'd been the one dumping a bottle of Everclear into the punch bowl. _It was funny! Sam needed to lighten up a little and enjoy his life!_

They locked eyes in their exasperation with each other.

Kendra didn't know how Derek and Casey could stay fixed in silent battle this way for all the long minutes that they did each day. Kendra only lasted a few seconds before another giggle formed and escaped.

"You're giving me that … _Kendra-I-don't-see-how-this-can-possibly-workout_ –look, again." If she wasn't still so giggly it would have come out really irritated and bitchy sounding.

Sam bowed his head, defeated.

"But, I really don't see how this _is_ going to work out. You and I are so different."

Kendra pursed her lips. _Well they weren't going to work out if he kept being such a gigantic downer all the time!_

Emily bounded over to them with two chocolate chip cookies and a cup of punch. "Hey, you guys, the punch is spiked! I can totally taste the rum in this!" She sipped at her cup.

"_Two_ cookies, Emily?"

Emily wasn't facing them but scanning the crowd, "Well I got one for Derek…"

Just then, Derek and Casey appeared again in the crowd. Derek was texting furiously with one hand and holding onto Casey's arm with the other.

_Oh god—_the purse she had almost internally complimented dangled off that arm!_ What was it made out of? It not even imitation leather! It's just shiny brown plastic!_

"Your mom puked, Case. We aren't going to the restaurant anymore," Derek looked up from his phone with a scrunched nose and grimace.

"Oh that's revolting!" Kendra squeaked.

Casey turned her nose up indignantly, "It's not revolting! She's pregnant!"

Kendra flicked a quick glance at Sam, just as he glanced at her. "Well, I guess it isn't revolting if she's pregnant." Kendra quickly amended—because that could be her puking on the way to a restaurant soon. _She needed to be careful not to wear any of her summer linen until this whole ordeal had ended_.

Derek poked Casey with an elbow. Casey flushed red.

_Obviously Sam told him—well it's his best friend. And, equally obvious was that Derek told Casey. _Kendra sighed, _What did she expect?_

"I got you a cookie, Derek." Emily broke into the uncomfortable moment, held out the cookie to her boyfriend. Derek took it without looking at her, shoved all of it in his mouth.

"Now _that's_ revolting," Sam quipped.

Derek smiled through the mess of chocolate and cookie. When Casey squealed in disgust, he pretended to wipe his face on her shoulder. "Stop it! Derek!"

He wrapped his arms around his stepsister, pinned her in his embrace and rubbed his face against the side of hers.

"Oh sick. I hate you, Derek!" But anyone could tell she felt just about the opposite, as Casey laughed and squirmed in his arms. She tried to rub the small amount of chocolate he had smeared onto her against Derek's shirt.

Kendra laughed at the two of them.

Then Sam, who was watching Kendra very carefully, _of course_, laughed too.

Only Emily stood silently.

_Holding that cookie she really shouldn't eat!_ _It's a crime to see Ralph Lauren Blue Label treated this way! Intervention! Intervention! _ "Give your other cookie to Casey," Kendra ordered. She held her hand out for it. "She can smear it on Derek and _he_ can have all the calories." _Hint hint …_

But, of course, Emily missed the hint, so Kendra just grabbed the remaining cookie out of her hand.

"Here, Casey."

Derek snatched it away before Casey could get to it. "I think that _I'll_ take _that_!"

Casey pouted.

"You know, you could come out to lunch with me and my parents, since your plans fell through," Emily offered.

Now that Derek had released her, Casey rubbed at her face with one hand. She stooped to pick up the jacket Derek had knocked off her shoulders. "I think I better get home to my mom, Em, but thanks for inviting us."

Only Emily hadn't really invited the two of them; she'd been looking at Derek when she'd offered.

Derek turned away from his girlfriend's pointed stare, "I think Casey and I should pick up a pizza or something. The kids will be hungry." His face was a little red.

Kendra's gaze ping-ponged between the couple.

When Emily's mom and dad came to collect her, Emily leaned in to peck Derek on the cheek.

Everyone looked away like they had just witnessed Emily do something shameful, maybe even demeaning.

Kendra felt bad for Emily. She'd been there—Derek's girlfriend. She knew.

_Oh! But the crocodile Jimmy Choo's that Emily's mother was wearing? Pure heaven. _

While Kendra tried to remember the price of the crocodile pumps, their little group dispersed. _Really, really expensive, if she remembered correctly. _

Sam sagged again. He looked exhausted.

Kendra leaned closer and kissed his mop of blond curls.

"We are so going to have the most adorable baby," she suddenly blurted. Because they so _were_ going to have the most adorable baby! She hadn't even considered it until that moment.

"We might be different in a few little unimportant ways but just think about it—we're both natural blonds and blue-eyed! Everyone wants to be a natural blond! Right? Our baby will most definitely have our perfect coloring!" She was practically bouncing on her toes with this little revelation she was having. Then something else occurred to her,

"Oh hey, I just said the word "baby"—out loud and everything!"

Sam gave her a half-smile. "And I'm not feeling dizzy or breaking into a cold sweat for once. That's progress, right?"

"Yeah. That was totally annoying. I am so not dating a guy who has fainting spells." Kendra rolled her eyes at him. But she remembered that things could be so much worse. She could be having _Derek's_ baby and still have to watch him smear chocolate on his stepsister, then beg with his eyes to lick it back off of her.

She took Sam's hand in hers. "I'm okay about just dating, not getting married, by the way."

Sam tensed. Then he quickly led them against a wall, out of the crush of people: finding each other, gulping spiked punch, trying to leave. "What are you saying?" he asked her.

Kendra felt terrible to see how her words affected him. Sam Richards was a really good guy. She hadn't needed to draw out the big guns on him after all.

"I was worried you were going to blow me off, or tell me to take care of it on my own. That other time…when I thought I might be…

Well, "_you know who_", made it clear he _wouldn't_ have stuck around. He dumped me right afterwards," she said.

She wanted to shake her head at the way her own mind worked. So now she _could_ say the word, "baby" but she _couldn't _say she'd once thought she'd been knocked up by Derek Venturi!

But maybe that was for Sam's sake more than hers. He already knew it was Derek, so why rub it in?

Derek was her boyfriend's best friend, and Kendra didn't want to ruin that. _She was probably ruining enough things in his life_, she thought wistfully.

"Kendra. I would never do that to you," Sam said frowning.

"Well, duh, I know that now. But, just in case the test was right this time…well I wanted to make sure. I really _don't_ want to get married though. You need to go to college and become a lawyer like you said you wanted."

She took his face in her hands and kissed him on the mouth, her eyes closed and the strange sensation of tears in her throat. "Besides," she added, wanting to sound flippant but not quite able to pull it off, "I'm going to need a really big child support check each month."

Sam smiled. He pulled one of her hands from his face and kissed the back of it.

She loved it when he did stuff like that. He was such a romantic, sweet guy.

"I just don't want to do this alone," she whispered. "I feel kind of bad about taking your virginity and getting knocked up, Sam. Except…to be honest I don't mind having a gorgeous future-lawyer boyfriend waiting for me. Is that bad? Am I horrible?"

Sam snorted. "Well, I'm glad you like something about me besides my natural blond hair," he said. But he smiled in the bashful way that always made her heart melt.

"Sam?" A taller white haired version of her boyfriend was suddenly standing beside them. "And you must be Kendra! We're so glad your parents invited us to their club for lunch. Sam says that you are very special in his life," his dad had the same gentle voice and manner as his son.

"I hope so," Kendra chirped, suddenly a little nervous. _This is it!_ They were going to tell them together—in public—just to be sure Kendra's dad didn't totally freak-out.

Sam's mom joined his dad and smiled wide-eyed and wholesome at his side. She kind of reminded Kendra of Casey…except…

_Oh! Except, for that gorgeous coat! Marc Jacobs in grey cashmere! And the Stuart Weitzman pumps…exactly what I would have paired with that skirt…Calvin Klein isn't it?_

_TBC_


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11 -- George

Raising Derek? Very Difficult.

His wife felt over-whelmed and resentful. George thought, maybe she had a reason to be.

She was the one staying home with a needy baby, an over-active toddler, an aggressive preschooler. George toiled in law school, until he got the chance to became disillusioned with the big firm he was hired at, finally relented a meager starting salary for an even more meager take home pay from his own (more satisfactorily ethical) practice. Derek was a blur of activity and noise and George mostly brushed off his wife's complaints until their son flunked first grade.

He was truly astounded by the amount of chaos and trouble a six year old could cause in one preschool. And the kid still couldn't read or print legibly! George took over raising Derek. His wife was relieved.

Raising Edwin? Moderately Difficult.

His wife felt even more over-whelmed and even more resentful. This time, George knew, she didn't have any reason to be.

Edwin was a dream baby. He slept on a schedule as a newborn. He ate everything put in front of him as a toddler. He followed rules and cleaned up after himself as a preschooler. Abbey seemed to have Post-Traumatic Parenting from Derek and couldn't see any of Edwin's merits. She dropped both boys off at his office so often that George had a sitter on speed-dial and a play area set up in an empty partner office. He had no idea what his wife did with her free time but it wasn't clean or cook or bring any other money into the house. Both boys thought the word "dinner" was some kind of nickname for Ramen Noodles. George wondered what he had gotten himself into – marriage, parenthood, his own law practice – and _why_ he had gotten himself into it on a daily basis.

Raising Marti? Easy.

His wife moved out almost immediately after giving birth. So, George had the sitter come every day to the house. Marti didn't sleep or eat on any kind of schedule – which was fine because they didn't have one.

She captured all the stuffed animals after the boys had nearly lost interest in them—there was an ugly battle with Edwin for a ratty yellow elephant and something red and stuffing-less that may have once been a turtle.

Derek got involved and the animals went to Marti. Then George made Derek teach Edwin to play _Pokemon Snap!_ (his first video game).

Problem Solved.

His law practice was finally in the black and Abbey was only involved in their lives to the limited degree that made everyone happier.

Then George met Nora, and the places that Abbey had left empty were filled.

But now two more kids to raise…

Raising Lizzie? Moderately Easy.

What a relief that at least one of the new daughters was a tomboy!

George kicked the soccer ball around with her – similar to hitting a puck back and forth with Derek. Lizzie came to him with homework problems like Edwin did. George bought her the same games and puzzles and science kits that he got Edwin as presents. He checked her closet for monsters before tucking her in, something he did with Marti, and he read C.S. Lewis to her occasionally, which was Marti's favorite too.

Raising Casey? Off The Chart Difficult.

She already had conflicted feelings for her biological father, plus Casey was used to having her mother's undivided attention and loyalty.

At first, she was suspicious of George's dependability, his commitment to the blended family and her. But George, confident of his own love of family and reliability, weathered that period. He proved himself to his new teenage daughter, proving the durability of her new family as well.

She was high-strung, demanding and emotional; however, and George would never say this aloud, ultimately, handling the stick of dynamite that was Casey's feelings wasn't all that different from the tentative, careful handling of the powder-keg that was Derek's. George managed.

All of which should have made the experience rate a "Very Difficult" at the most.

But the third (and completely unexpected category to managing this new relationship) was the difficult wire of protectiveness George was expected to walk.

Casey was beautiful and talented and smart, and boys noticed this.

They came to the house to pick her up for dates. They brought her home from those dates – sometimes late! Sometimes _far too_ late!

They called. They wanted to be her boyfriend. They wanted…

George didn't even want to THINK about everything they wanted.

How was he supposed to handle this delicate part of being a father? George knew he couldn't pull of the overbearing ogre act. Plus, he was certain Casey _wouldn't tolerate _it, even if he could.

That said, he'd been a teenage boy once… he couldn't do _nothing_!

What a relief, then, to find the problem taken out of his hands.

Derek checked up on her dates before she had them. He intercepted her calls and killed the passionate moments at the door or in the parked car after a date.

George, himself, never had a sister but he supposed there were the same protective, proprietary feelings involved.

Casey's first dates with Sam had actually been the three of them going to movies or arcades or bowling. Derek waited just inside the front door for the couple to kiss goodnight – tense, listening, chewing the inside of one cheek.

Strangely, once Casey made a stand against the threesome dates, and finally had Sam to herself, their relationship fell apart.

George supposed the thrill of defying Derek by dating his friend wasn't as intense if Derek wasn't hanging around to witness it.

George compared it to his own hockey skills always being better when his older brother, Steven, was on the ice with him. Something similar was at work. Wasn't it?

Then Max came along and Derek had to use subterfuge to find out about the events of their dates. Suddenly the football team became the enemy of the hockey team. Derek kept Max busy. No time for rumors to be spread or even made about his stepsister. George could time his own visits to Principal Lassiter's office with the nights Casey came home late.

Retaliation. George got that.

He never really punished Derek for the pranks, no matter how purple Lassiter's face turned while explaining them.

And now Truman.

There were times that George suspected Derek tailed them on dates – he seemed to find reasons to leave in The Prince just after the two of them did and he always came back home just as Truman walked her to the door. Derek showed up at the same places Casey and Truman did on purpose – at least George suspected this as well. And George knew his son listened in on their phone calls.

No matter how many times Casey complained about Derek's involvement in her love life – George managed to deflect Nora's arguments with his own: that Derek did the job of watching out for her better than any gun wielding, attack-dog-owning, police-scanner-listening, protective father ever could.

And didn't the peace of mind that brought far outweigh any complaining they had to listen to from Casey?

Nora always agreed.

Which all lead to George's current predicament. He could hear his oldest daughter crying on the front porch and he could hear angry shouting too. Whatever she was crying about wasn't going over well with Truman.

George crunched the pizza box between his hands. He'd been pretty obviously loitering around the front window, until the teens noticed him and moved further down the porch to a concealed angle.

Then he'd had the idea of the empty pizza box. He could interrupt the two of them on the porch to throw it into the barrel in front of the house for pick-up.

But then what?

Casey was crying and Truman was yelling. Did he ask Truman to leave? Should he wait for Casey to do that? Did they even need his interference or would they resolve it on their own?

She was eighteen now and would be leaving home in a few months. Casey needed to learn to solve these problems on her own – and wouldn't it be better if she started with a high school boyfriend on her family's front porch rather than with a completely unknown college boy in front of an impersonal dorm building?

Why was this so hard?

George hit himself over the head with the scrunched pizza box.

"Dad, what are you doing?" Derek came down the stairs. He had his ipod ear buds in his ears. Well that explained one thing.

The kids had made their college announcements at the celebratory pizza lunch just a little earlier. They were both going to Queens. They both had scholarships.

George had let given in to a feeling of parental accomplishment, and, of course, he'd jinxed himself.

He should be able to solve this without depending on Derek to take over. It wasn't fair to his eldest son and it also meant George didn't deserve the glowing pride he'd had over his own parenting moments ago.

While he'd paused to come up with an answer that didn't make him feel spineless and befuddled, Derek had removed one of the ear buds, a tinny blast of guitar and drums in the wake of the movement.

"_That's bullshit, Casey, and you know it is!" _

"_Truman, I'm trying to be honest here!" _

"_Well, you fail at honesty, like you failed at that stupid speech. You're nothing but a tease! Look at how you're dressed!" _

Things were getting worse on the porch. Time to intervene?

George was still staring at his son and trying to determine just how to intervene when Derek's face darkened and his nostrils flared.

The powder keg had been ignited.

"Wait!" Instinctively, George dropped the pizza box, reached out to restrain his oldest. But he only grasped at the air where his son had been standing. Derek plummeted down the last few stairs and knocked his father aside to get the front door open.

"Derek! Wait!"

George rushed behind him but not fast enough. Derek had a fist full of Truman's shirt and he yanked him away from Casey and off of the porch.

Truman landed in the front bushes, but Derek dove on top of him, straddling Truman and the bush before starting an onslaught of swift, hard punches to the boy's face.

Both George and Casey flung their arms around Derek's waist to pull him off.

Truman's lower lip was bleeding and puffy, one eye and cheek darkening and puffy. But he looked shocked, expression still frozen in the first moments of Derek grabbing him, throwing him. George knew a little about Truman's family. If they weren't the type to want anything negative about their son or themselves to be kept quiet then he would be expecting a lawsuit in the next days.

Derek felt like a coiled spring in his arms, tense, ready to spring again if George or Casey released him.

"I think you should go now, Truman," Casey said at last. "Don't come back. We're through—for good this time."

Truman spit blood onto the lawn and straightened himself out. Then he looked Casey up and down and cracked an insolent smile. "Fine, Casey. If that's what you want." Truman flicked his eyes towards Derek, as if the "what you want," part of his statement meant her stepbrother, and the creepy insolent smile turned to a sneer.

Truman looked like he might say something else but George didn't think he could hold on to Derek if he did.

"I think you should leave, Son," George said. It came out sympathetic, a little pitying. George couldn't help himself—he wasn't some quick reacting aggressor like Derek—he was a softie. He was a guy who once had a play area in his office and a guy who enjoyed raising children—so much so that he was having another one as soon as his first two left for college.

Truman looked a little startled, and then a little shamed by George's tone. Derek had relaxed just a little and George let go of him, although Casey's arms seemed to tighten into something resembling a hug.

Truman gave one last angry look towards Derek, his cocky, superior grin finally replaced with something more serious and sincere. Then he staggered towards his navy BMW parked at the curb.

George watched him drive away. Poor kid. It couldn't be easy for him—his family had never struck George as particularly loving or accepting.

George gripped Derek's shoulder as he passed him. But Derek's eyes were on Casey and hers on him. George was glad that they would have each other at Queen's.

He wanted them to be successful there, sure.

But happiness had always been more important to George than success.

Most of all, he wanted his kids to be happy.

. . .


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12 – Sally

Sally felt a jolt of adrenaline go up her spine every time the door to Smelly Nellie's banged open, and the little jingle bell signaled that someone new had arrived. She knew that, eventually, the little bell would herald the appearance of her ex… and she wanted to be ready for it.

Most of JS Thompson's graduating class had gathered this evening, after spending the day with their families, to party, relax, reminisce, and angst over college plans, and despite her not wanting it to be awkward that she was there, it was painfully, horrible awkward. Thank God that her new boyfriend felt secure in her commitment to him. They were attracting a lot of attention – SHE was attracting a lot of attention.

_"That's the girl Derek Venturi dated for like … forever? Right?"_

_"God – look at the way she keeps watching the door! Does she think that they're going to fight over her or something?"_

_"Does she WANT them to? She must be trying to make Derek jealous!"_

_"Oh My God! Derek Venturi will, like, DESTROY Noel Covington!"_

_"This is going to be sooooo awesome!"_

Sally was the only one who knew that Derek didn't give a damn who she was with – he hadn't cared for a long time. If only she had known back when they were dating… If only she hadn't been so blinded by his charm and good looks and how much his family reminded her of her own before her parents divorced and her brothers moved away…

She must have let the hurt show on her face because Noel reached a hand across the table and took her own.

"You okay?"

She smiled. "I'm good."

When she had first considered going to Vancouver for school, she had come up with the same solution as Derek – she'd just come up with it a little earlier than he had. She knew he'd get there though – that the most reasonable option for them was for Derek to come with her. She'd been expecting the little preemptive breakup when she first mentioned going to school in Vancouver – because that was exactly the kind of avoidance of painful or difficult emotional situations that Derek always practiced.

She'd known that he would think it over – realize the more painful choice was being without her in his life at all – then he'd be back. She'd been right too! He HAD come back.

After he'd come back to Smelly Nellie's, apologized, admitted he wanted to see the relationship through the summer, the two of them had gone straight back to her place and fallen in bed together. It had been one of the best nights of her life – at first ...

She'd curled beside him in bed and gloated a little at knowing he would reconsider and want to get back together.

"You knew I would?" he'd questioned her. His voice was creaky and sexy. Derek stretched and rubbed at the hicky Sally had left on his chest.

"Of course, I did. After all, I AM the girl who made you quit playing your usual games to win me over, and I was the first girl who's opinion you respected. I was the one who got you to write your first meaningful song…"

Derek had looked thoughtful and considering. He'd pulled away from her a little and run a hand through his messy hair. "That's not exactly how …"

"Don't even try to tell me that you did all that on your own!" she'd interrupted him.

Derek looked uncomfortable. He stared at the ceiling, bit at the side of his cheek. "I didn't do those things on my own … but …"

She grabbed his face and turned it towards her. Forced him to make eye contact – _This was important!_

"I'm the one who got you to help around the home and be a better sibling and a better person…"

Derek's cheeks paled. He looked sick, "Sally. I don't know how to tell you this but …"

She'd placed one hand over his mouth to stop whatever ridiculous excuse he was going to give. "Don't tell me you 'just matured', Derek Venturi!" She prodded his bare chest with a finger. "You did those things for love. It's obvious."

"... It is?" Derek pulled away from her, started to gather his clothes and dress. "It isn't THAT obvious. Maybe I'm just not as bad a guy as everyone says? Maybe anyone could have gotten me to …"

"Derek!" She'd tried to laugh – get him to laugh but he'd winced instead. "Don't ruin the moment here!" She sat up in bed. Somehow the conversation had gone from playful post-sex banter to something serious, maybe even deal breaking. _But,_ He'd told her he loved her back at Smelly Nellie's! Why couldn't he just admit now that she was important to him – the _most_ important?

But he couldn't. At least, he didn't.

Actually it was Noel who eventually filled in that shock of silence from Derek: She wasn't the one who'd made Derek a better sibling, better person, more honest, more dependable.

Noel could remember the selfish middle school version of Derek shrugging off his little brother getting bullied at the bus stop.

Casey was the first person to inspire guilt and familial loyalty in Derek.

Noel remembered a younger version of Derek bullying other kids. Casey got him to treat the non-popular kids better.

Casey inspired him to be organized and nagged him into studying.

Casey reasoned with him when he picked fights.

Casey acted as a moral compass when he planned pranks.

It was Casey's opinion Derek respected and Casey he listened to.

The transformation of Derek Venturi from "feared, aloof, _cool_ guy" to "likeable, prank master, _popular_ guy" was something Noel both witnessed from afar and watched firsthand as a confidant of Derek's stepsister.

The way Derek had reacted to all Sally's "evidence" of the impact of her love on his life was suddenly clear to her in a way it had never been. Derek hadn't been choking on his feelings for her – that sputtering, sick reaction had been terror at being found out. He'd wanted his stepsister the whole time.

That evening between Sally and Derek had ended with them agreeing to end things once she left for Vancouver – no contact – no picking back up on holidays – no plan for him to join her.

But, at first, Sally hadn't understood _why_.

Even though they agreed on no contact, no point in trying to play at a long distance relationship when she was all the way across the country, no need to call, no reason to email or Skype …Even though she gamely agreed that it was for the best, she'd still sort of hoped … If she were honest with herself, she hadn't just hoped, she'd expected … _every single day_ … she'd expected him to cave: call her, write her, text, email …_something._

But, _nothing_. He had really let her go this time.

When she came home for Christmas, she'd had too much pride to contact him first. And, contacting Casey would just be pathetically transparent as an attempt to see Derek …

But, accidently running into Casey? Sally had been desperate.

She got coffee at the Starbucks Casey frequented and take-out Chinese from the place near Casey's dance studio. Sally went to see a poetry reading and a Russian play.

Finally, nearly frantic, she enrolled in a four day acting course at the community center where Casey worked, only to find that Casey had taken the holiday break off to study for exams. For the little amount of self-respect she had left, she decided to go through with the class anyway, convince herself that it was something she might have done for reasons entirely unrelated to the breakup with Derek. And she had met – actually re-met – Noel Covington.

Noel was sweet and comforting. Sally's ego was bruised but Noel reassured her that she wasn't the only one to act as collateral damage to the weirdness between the step sibs. _Poor Emily. It wouldn't be easy for her once she figured it out._

Noel squeezed her hand again. "They're here."

Sally watched Derek strut into the restaurant, Emily and Casey right behind him.

She stood and met them at the door.

Emily and Casey both looked a little shocked to see Derek's old girlfriend back from Vancouver and tugging him away from them.

Sally led him to a darkened alley near the restaurant. It was where kids went to smoke. Neither of them smoked though. Derek kept glancing at the mouth of the alley. "Hey, Sal," completely casual – as if no time had passed, as if there was nothing special in seeing each other again after a year apart.

Sally took a big breath, like she was getting ready to plunge into deep water. "I just wanted to talk to you for a minute. So it wasn't a shock to see me here … or anything."

Derek's eyes flicked from the street to her face. "You're dating Noel. I already know about that." Derek rolled his eyes. "Casey told me about it months ago, 'kay? She and Noel are _buddies_." His lips tightened, nearly sneered before he shook off the darkening of his mood. Derek didn't believe in guys and girls being friends. Sally remembered.

"Anyway," he continued. "It's cool. I have a girlfriend now too." He went back to craning his neck towards the street outside the restaurant. "Are we done here, then?"

That was it? He hadn't seen her in a year … and THAT WAS IT?

Sally cleared her throat. Then, "I didn't want this to be awkward. I tried to call your home first but Edwin said there was something going on with Casey's boyfriend that you were involved in…" Sally tried to give him a friendly shoulder bump to lighten things—remind him of whatever silly prank he'd done to Casey's latest love interest. But that tactic didn't work and Derek's expression only darkened again.

"I called back, but then you were in the shower. I guess Edwin and Marti didn't pass the messages along."

Something – guilt –flickered across Derek's face. Okay, Edwin and Marti actually _had_ passed her messages along. He just hadn't called her back. "I still really care about you, Derek," Sally tried.

Derek sucked in a breath, "Listen, Sal… I didn't want a long distance relationship and you moved on. It was just a thing that lasted a few months, ran its course. It was never all that …big of a deal."

_God! That hurt! The only thing keeping her tears at bay was her certainty that he would dart away like a scared cat the second she let one fall. "I just … I wanted to explain to you … about Noel."_

He finally made eye contact with her. "You don't have to explain. I was a little mad at first but I'm over it."

"Well …" _What do you even say to that? Fine? Thanks? Mission accomplished then, and have a good life?_

"I was hoping we could still be friends?" she said instead.

He cracked a little smile at her and it puzzled her all the more. Had he always been this difficult for her to read? She remembered thinking that she could handle him with a little cajoling and bribery -- that she had him figured out. She missed him and she missed his family and Casey. She avoided him at graduation but she'd been determined to get things out in the open later that night.

"Why CAN'T we be friends? You're dating Emily now and I'm dating Noel … neither of us would be wanting more."

Derek rolled his eyes, "Okay. Sure. We're friends now. Happy?"

_Had he always been such a prick? _

Derek straightened up from his slouch.

"Why are you being like this with me? You were the one who didn't want to stay in contact! You were the one who insisted we break up when I left!" She was shrieking at him, something she'd told herself she wouldn't do – no matter how this conversation went.

Derek crossed his arms over his chest, raised his eyebrows like this was what he'd been expecting.

But he DROVE her to it!

Sally opened her mouth to yell again, but she didn't get the chance…

"Derek?" Emily was suddenly in the alley behind them. Maybe Derek had seen her walk up? Nothing in his face or voice had given away that he had.

"What's going on?"

"God!" Derek ran a hand through his hair. "I have _no_ idea. Apparently, Sally wants to … " he raised his fingers to make air quotes, "'be my friend' only she's still mad at me for breaking up with her! "

Sally felt her entire body tingle with the urge to slap him. Now Emily would think that she'd dragged him out here to "steal him back" or something equally horrible.

"I can't believe you, Derek." _Emily?_

Sally wondered what her own face looked like, because Derek's mouth fell open and his eyes went round in surprise. "What? You aren't seriously taking her side in this?"

With Derek's frustration focused on Emily, Sally could see just how riled up she'd gotten him. He was tense, nostril's flared, hand's fisting and flexing. Probably reminding himself that he couldn't solve _this_ problem the way he _usually_ solved them.

"I've been standing here a while, Derek. You're acting like a total jerk. Sally just wants to be friends. Not _every_ girl is so hot for you that she's got some kind of ulterior motive to get in your pants. Why can't you just get over yourself for once and…"

"You know what? I don't need this crap from either of you!" Derek was almost panting with all the anger he was keeping at bay.

_Was this really about her?_ Sally wondered. _Was it about Emily? Derek looked on edge the second he walked up to Smelly Nellie's. Sally actually would have been a little afraid if Emily wasn't here … __Had this really been her boyfriend at one time?_

Sally thought about Noel's determination to follow her to Vancouver. The sweet poems and songs he wrote and sent to her all semester. The tenderness he was never afraid to show. What had she ever seen in Derek Venturi?

"God! People go out—they have fun. It doesn't have to be a big emotional commitment! I don't WANT that! I don't NEED that!" Derek ranted.

"Well maybe we shouldn't even bother!" Emily shouted, voice rattling a little, bottom lip beginning to pout.

"Maybe we shouldn't!" Derek agreed.

"Everything okay back here?" Noel stepped warily into the alley now.

"Sure!" Derek snarked. "Out here is where the fun stuff is happening. That's the lame party inside."

Noel's eyes focused on Sally's.

_I'm fine, please don't worry for me,_ she tried to silently send back to him.

Then, Casey stepped out of the dark to stand next to Noel. "Derek?" At the sound of her voice everything in Derek's demeanor shifted. He pulled back from the knife's edge of rage threatening. He took a deep breath. "Derek … Maybe we should go?…Truman's here..."

Derek's jaw tightened. "I was _trying_ to watch for him," he shot Sally an irritated glare that she didn't understand. Who was this Truman person?

Even Noel looked concerned for Casey. "Uh… Actually, he was already here. He seems kinda … drunk."

Noel motioned for Sally to come to him and she left her spot next to Derek.

Noel cracked a little half-smile at Derek, "He seems kinda drunk and kinda beat up too …not a good combination on him."

Casey bit her lip. "You better take us home, Derek."

Emily whirled to face her best friend. "I'm not going anywhere! I'm staying!" She glared at Derek one more time, "I'll catch a ride with Ralph and Amanda," she muttered, and then stalked angrily by Casey.

"Oh. Okay." Casey's voice was small, her smile forced.

"Derek?"

Derek nodded at Noel, ignored Sally, and gripped Casey's arm to lead her back to where they had parked.

The dark swallowed the two of them up and Sally was left alone in the alleyway with her boyfriend.

"I'm sorry," she told him. She'd thought she was done with Derek and the relationship she'd had with him.

She'd thought she really DID just want to be friends. She'd imagined having a heart to heart talk with him tonight, pressure off of them to be a couple, the way smoothed out for her to take her place back in the Mcdonald-Venturi home.

She'd been a fool. She'd been unfair to Noel.

Sally looked up into his eyes, "I'm really done with it this time. I know I said that before but I really am this time."

Noel smiled at her, patient, quiet, loving.

He was perfect for her, always just what she needed.

"Good," he whispered and kissed her and it felt like balm on all the wounds she'd reopened that night.

TBC


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13 – Marti

The kitchen smelled like chocolate and butter because something sugary baked in the oven – Marti's favorite way for the kitchen to smell.

She pressed her nose against the little oven window to see inside. The dark tint painted over the window made it hard to see but Marti could still make out the melting, puffing circles of Tollhouse Cookie dough. She closed her eyes and breathed in. She could almost taste them.

"You'll burn your nose again," Casey sing-songed behind her. Casey's cool hand cupped Marti's cheek and turned her away from the oven. "Why don't you watch the timer instead, 'kay Marti? It's on seven right now and when it gets to zero …"

"Cookies!" Marti shouted. She made Casey smile and that made Smerek smile.

Her big brother scooped her up in his arms, "with ice cream and hot fudge …" Marti looked up at Casey. Sometimes her big sister cut off the plans Smerek had for making her deserts bigger and better and more delicious.

But Casey was smiling so it looked like Marti was going to get to eat her warm cookie under a scoop of ice cream with the fudge sauce dripping down. This was definitely the best way to eat a warm cookie. Her brother set her carefully onto one of the tall stools facing the ticking white kitchen timer. Marti watched the timer …six minutes more.

"Hey, Derek?"

"hmmmm?"

Marti glanced over her shoulder. Her brother peered into the bowl Casey had used to mix all the cookie ingredients together. Stupid Smerek! Marti had already licked it clean. He wouldn't find a single smear of dough in there. Marti turned back to the timer – still six minutes …

"All that stuff you were saying when Noel and I walked up…"

"Come on, Case! Do we have to talk about that shit?"

"I was just wondering…"

"Listen, I'll apologize to Emily tomorrow and you can tell No-elle that I don't hate him or Sally or whatever it is you're getting ready to bitch at me about ..."

"I'm not getting ready to BITCH at you about anything!

Marti turned back around. "Are you guys fighting?"She hated when they fought. She could tell the difference between when Derek and Casey pulled at each other like an invisible tug of rope stretched between them, and when they really got mad. When Derek made Casey sulk in her room or Casey ignored Derek … then they were mad for real. It always made Marti's stomach hurt when they fought – just the same as Daddy and Nora.

Derek took a deep breath. "No, we aren't fighting. Right, Case?" He looked into Casey's eyes with the deep breath still inside of him.

Marti knew he was really asking Casey if she would stop fighting with him. Marti made her best, most saddest, boo-boo lip at Casey.

Casey sighed, "No. We aren't fighting, Marti."

Derek finally let out the big breath he'd been holding.

Marti turned back to the timer. FIVE minutes! She counted to herself – "One. Two. Three. Four. Five!" Then she licked the thumb on her right hand and squeezed her eyes shut, tried to press her the licked thumb against her left elbow. First try! – right on the pointiest bone! Marti opened her eyes …Oh … it didn't work ... still five minutes.

"It's just what you said about not wanting a big emotional commitment and then… I mean you don't want to be friends with Sally and …"

Derek groaned. "Trust me, Case. Sally doesn't just want to be friends. She wants to be able to come over here and run me around and hang out all the time, just like we never even broke up. And eventually she'd want even more…

"But she has Noel!"

"And he's probably totally pissed off at her right now."

"Noel's not like that … anyway …"

Four minutes! Poopy farts! That took forever! And she had four more of them to go? She'd never make it! "Casey, can we please take the cookies out a little early? Please?" The boo-boo lip had worked so well when they were fighting – Marti turned it back on and faced her big sister. She opened her eyes extra wide and innocent looking just to really get under Casey's skin. But Casey wasn't looking at Marti. She was watching Derek shake the milk carton to see how much was left.

"So what about Emily?" Casey asked him. "You seemed like you wanted commitment when you asked her to be your girlfriend on prom night."

Derek drank the last of the milk out of the carton. Marti's eyes darted back to her big sister, but Casey didn't even seem to care. Even when Derek put the empty carton back into the refrigerator! Marti's stomach started to hurt again. They were fighting!

"Emily wasn't what I thought she would be. Once we were dating she didn't act the same way she always had when she was over here with you. I thought she would be more like … I thought that being with her would be about the same as …" He rubbed his hands over his face like he was frustrated.

"As being with Casey?" Marti offered.

Derek's hands snapped off his face like he'd touched something hot – too hot – like when Marti touched her nose on the oven. "No!" he barked at her. He opened the refrigerator again and grabbed the empty milk carton. He chucked the carton across the room into the trash can. Marti clapped, but still neither Derek nor Casey looked her way.

"Just … why are you bugging me about all this right now? I've had a crappy night, okay? I fought your stupid ex-boyfriend and Emily broke up with me! I don't want to talk about all this stuff!"

Marti watched the angry glares ping-pong between them:

"You guys ARE fighting!"

"NO WE AREN'T!" they both yelled at her.

"Yeesh!" Marti turned back towards the timer with a huff. Two minutes. "Yeesh," she muttered again.

"I just think it's sad that you don't see any value in a being in a committed relationship. I just think … it's sad … to think of you being all alone when – I mean EVENTUALLY – all your friends get married, have families …

Marti turned back around. "But Smerek has us, Casey. We're his family."

Casey's face crumpled a little and Marti thought she was going to cry. "Don't be sad for him. I'M not ever going to leave him alone!"

Derek came over to pat Marti on the head and Casey sort of smiled. They both looked really sad still. Marti knew that they were both moving four hours away to Kingston after the summertime. "Only four hours which is nothing" Derek had told her. But, now, Marti could picture Casey turning the kitchen timer all the way to the start triangle … four times.

Then she pictured the two of them living in a castle made of chocolate chip cookie dough, and they couldn't get out the sticky, doughy doors until it was completely baked. Four times. Was that REALLY nothing? Or were they leaving forever? Would it be like when Mommy moved away? Would she only see Derek and Casey every other holiday too? Marti's throat tightened and her nose started to itch. All the air was going into her tummy instead of into the places that made her breathe. Marti remembered Casey telling Derek, "It's what the four hours symbolize, Derek." Which made everything sound a lot more serious than "nothing".

The kitchen timer buzzed so loudly that Marti could feel the sound go down her back and into her toes. Casey slid the pan out of the oven but they all three were silent and no one was excited about eating the cookies anymore. Not even with the ice cream and fudge sauce.

When Casey tucked her into bed that night she still looked sad.

"Are you still worried about Derek being all alone?"

Casey smiled but she didn't mean it. She handed Marti Sir Monks A Lot and sat on the edge of Marti's little bed. "No," Casey said, but she didn't mean _that_ either.

"Are you worried about YOU being all alone?" Marti asked her.

Casey smiled again but she seemed to mean it even less than the last time. Marti knew that the next thing Casey said wouldn't be true either. "No."

Marti sighed. She could see the moon shining between the part in her Tinkerbell curtains. Marti frowned. Tinkerbell curtains are for babies and she was going to be a big sister soon. She needed big sister curtains.

"Casey?"

"Hmmm?" Casey had followed Marti's eyes and she was watching the moon too.

"You and Derek are coming back right? It won't be the same as when Mommy moved away from home?"

Casey turned back to her, the surprise clear on her big sister's face. "Of course we're going to come back, Marti! This is still our home."

"Then stop being sad, Casey! You won't be alone and Smerek won't be alone because you'll be TOGETHER. You're his sister. He HAS to be with you."

Casey smiled a little then, still not meaning it. "That's right, honey." She leaned in to kiss Marti on the forehead, the way that Nora always did at night. Marti imagined kissing the new baby this same way. The new baby could even have her Tinkerbell curtains … but just to borrow, of course.

After Casey left, Marti drifted into a dream world where the moon was as bright and big as the sun and Tinkerbell helped her pull the curtains off her window and then flittered around the house and into the yard, gathering toys that Marti had lost long ago and unearthing the buried treasure of Derek's Mardi-Gras necklaces that she and Dimi had buried before either of them had ever started school.

"These are for the baby," Tinkerbell said in her tiny bell-chime voice.

"But they belong to me!" Marti told her – and even thought she had forgotten all about the lost toys and the buried necklaces – they were suddenly precious now that Tinkerbell wanted to give them away.

"But you got to have Derek and Casey! Their better than these!" Tinkerbell held up the dirty necklaces and the dusty broken toys that Marti had lost.

"Oh."

Marti woke up with the moon still small and just a little bright. Tinkerbell was back in her purple swirled world on the curtains.

Downstairs were the cookies. Marti got out of bed and tiptoed into the hallway. No one. She carefully came down the stairs and into the kitchen. Still No one.

Next to the plate of cookies were the two big catalogues of all the classes that Derek and Casey could sign up for next year. They must have both been looking at them together. Marti climbed on a stool and palmed a cookie off the plate. She tried to fit the whole thing in her mouth the way that Derek could but there was still half a cookie left over that didn't fit. She shrugged and bit it in two. Had Tinkerbell really dug the Mardi-Gras necklaces? And how did she even know where they were? Both Marti and Dimi had sworn on their LIVES that they would never tell anyone about them—and Marti was pretty sure that Dimi had since forgotten about them, just like she had.

Marti went to the back door and unlatched it. She stepped out into the dark yard. It had a different, secret sort of life after they all went to sleep and the sun went down. It didn't even seem like her daytime back yard. Marti felt like she didn't belong back here and she was very, very quiet with the door.

The ground was smooth and grown-over with dandelions just behind the basketball hoop—where the necklaces were buried. Tinkerbell hadn't really dug them up after-all.

_"So if I'm your brother then … what? Why do you want that?" _Smerek's voice.

_"Listen, it's just something Marti said, okay?" _Casey's voice.

But where WERE they? Marti crept—still quiet as possible—quieter than she'd ever been before—into the yard.

They were both leaving against the side of the house, under Marti's window where it was the easiest to see the moon. They both looked up and out, as if that was exactly what they were looking at. Marti could see Smerek's face in the pale violet glow of the nighttime back yard.

"Listen... The thing about us being family? Of course she's going to feel like that—she was a little kid when you guys came to live here. It's not that way … for us."

Casey bit at her bottom lip. "But maybe it should be."

Derek let his head drop back against the house with a thump. He squeezed his eyes shut, the way he would if the sun was hanging too brightly over him instead of barely twinkling stars. "If that's what you want, Case."

Casey sniffed. Marti felt her own eyes fill with tears. Casey was crying! Casey was sad! Marti KNEW Casey had lied to her when she'd tucked her in. She was worried about being alone … or Derek being alone … or maybe Casey and Derek were never coming home and THAT had been the lie?

"I don't want you to ever blow me off the way you did to Sally. I don't want to ever have you walk away from me the way you did to Emily. I don't want to have to see you every holiday for the rest of my life and … feel like just some …" Casey sounded like she was choking. She sounded like she didn't have any words for the rest of what she wanted to say.

"Well, don't worry, because I won't," Derek turned on her angrily. "God, Case! Are you that dense?"

He grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her towards him. "I went crawling back to that asshole, Truman, so YOU could have your dream date to prom! I busted my ass so Queens would give me a chance at a hockey scholarship! I'm moving four hours away from a town I fucking RULE … for YOU!"

"But you were going to leave for Europe!" Marti couldn't see Casey's face but she could tell Casey was trembling.

Derek pulled Casey into a hug. He was laughing at her and neither Marti nor Casey got the joke. "You're probably the stupidest Valedictorian in the history of … anywhere." Derek pulled back, now serious, a little nervous even. "I want to be with you."

"Oh. Okay … You do?" Casey seemed to know what he was talking about even though—from the way he was holding her—Marti didn't think he could get anymore "with" her unless he swallowed her up.

"Yeah," he breathed.

"Well … then … um… me too … with you," Casey whispered back. Then Smerek leaned in slowly and put his lips gently onto Casey's. They were kissing.

Marti's mouth fell open.

She tiptoed backwards towards the door and slowly, carefully pried it back open.

Smerek loved Casey? Loved Casey like Daddy loved Nora? What did that make them—were they still her brother and sister if they were "with" each other and kissing.

Tinkerbell had been right—even if she hadn't really bothered to dig up the Mardi-Gras necklaces or find all Marti's lost toys. The new baby wasn't going to get Derek and Casey—not the same way that Marti had them.

Derek and Casey would probably seem just like an extra mommy and daddy instead of a big brother and big sister.

Marti trudged up the stairs feeling guilty about the toys and buried treasure she had begrudged the baby. She climbed back into her bed and regarded the Tinkerbell curtains again.

She would GIVE the curtains to the baby—not just for borrow. And she would try harder to be a big girl and big sister because it seemed like the baby was going to be short a sibling. Marti was going to have to be extra fun like Smerek and extra helpful like Casey to make up for it.

Marti closed her eyes and pictured the baby as a smaller version of herself—when the littler Marti was old enough she could give her a beach shovel and lead her into the backyard to look for buried treasure.

And unlike all the times that Marti herself had gone searching – the new baby – the mini-Marti—would actually FIND some. Marti smiled. How cool would that be?

TBC


	14. Chapter 14

. . .

Chapter 14 -- Sheldon

. . .

This was probably going to be the last night of his life. But, he was okay with that. Sheldon had always been a fan of The Big Romantic Gesture, and he felt certain that his mother and sisters would understand – that it was the way he would have wanted to go.

Music coming from the back of the Davis' house drowned out the doorbell's chime. Not until after he'd stood there for a few minutes, stupidly pressing the bell, did he see the "PARTY AROUND THE BACK! FOLLOW PATH!" sign written in fluorescent green marker taped to the door.

The sweaty, creased leaflet in his hand cheered him on with bright red bubble letters: "You are invited!" Sheldon tried to swallow in a dry throat.

It had taken the last of his savings to fly back into London to make it to Emily's "Summer Kickoff!" party to which he was "invited!" Flying here, plus the taxis and hotel, meant that he was going to be eating a lot of Ramen noodles during the fall. Not that he was counting on living past this single night. Derek Venturi was, most definitely, going to kill him before even one drop of Original Oriental Flavor goodness could wrap itself around his fork.

Sheldon read over the invitation one more time – besides all the stuff printed to everyone about "kicking off the summer" and being "invited" with a string of exclamation points, Emily had scrawled a personal communication just for him: "Just to let you know I finally passed Algebra! I'll totally be making a toast to all your tutoring efforts! Love, Em"

It was a simple, but many layered, message.

When Emily had been certain she would never graduate due to her terrible math skills, he'd patiently tutored her, tirelessly encouraged her and, when all else failed, helped her to cheat by writing the formulas in teeny tiny handwriting on the inside of one shoe. So, this achievement, graduation – the very REASON for the party was due to his presence in her life. It was kind of like… she was having the party for him. Emily obviously wanted him to know that she still cared! She was trying to tell Sheldon that he was still her "raison d'etre"!

And the "making a toast" part! Clearly _this_ hinted that Emily was going to make some kind of … declaration! _About him_! She wanted him to come to her party so she could reciprocate his own big declaration at prom, when he'd asked her to marry him with her own. She'd even signed it "love" and used the special nickname he had for her, "Em" – _Okay it was also the special nickname that Casey used … and Dimi … and her mom … Had Derek even called her that once? Anyway, none of that mattered! It had been very special when Sheldon said it. He wasn't normally a nickname kinda guy. Sheldon carefully slid the invitation back into the pocket of his khakis as he followed the side path around to the back gate._

_Oh shit!_

Derek's buddy, Sam, leaned against the tall wooden back gate. Most likely, he was acting as lookout for Derek – waiting for just this moment that Sheldon would arrive and challenge his claim to Emily!

Venturi was no idiot—he must know that his girlfriend was still carrying a torch for the romantic ex who had proposed to her at prom.

Although, it appeared Sam had fallen down in his lookout duties as he wasn't really "looking out," but instead seemed pretty preoccupied making out with that super-mean popular girl who used to stick KICK ME signs on Sheldon's back with her gum. Sheldon hadn't minded the signs as much as the gum. His mom threw a fit whenever the gum jammed up the laundry machine and made Sheldon pick it out with a tweezer. Took forever.

"I'm going to miss you so much, Sammy," the popular girl whined.

"I'll come back every weekend and then … afterwards … my parents are going to spring for the apartment in Toronto. It will hardly seem like I'm gone."

"I'm so worried about everything."

"Don't worry. The doctor said everything was fine."

"No! I'm worried that the apartment will be ugly. You promise to let your mom pick it out?"

"Um … " Sheldon tried to lower his voice, tried to disguise it a little. With the dark and they way Sam was busy reassuring his girlfriend … maybe he could slip by unnoticed.

Sam rubbed at his girlfriend's back, "The apartment will be fine too. We can spend some of my student loans on new wallpaper and … throw cushions … or … whatever …"

"You're the best, Sammy."

"Um … could I just …" Sheldon motioned to the gate even though neither Sam nor the popular girl … Kendra!, Sheldon remembered. Even though neither Sam not Kendra looked his way. And, Kendra definitely didn't have any gum in her mouth right now. Sam was thoroughly … excavating …it.

"Um, guys?" Sheldon cleared his throat. He jiggled the latch of the gate just to Sam's left, but still the two kissing ignored him.

"Um, hey? Guys?"

The couple didn't even glance at him.

"CAN YOU BOTH SCOOT OVER – I WANT TO GO TO THE PARTY BUT YOU'RE BLOCKING THE FUCKING GATE!"

Sam and Kendra pulled apart to stare wide-eyed at Sheldon. Sam's face glistened in the dark with lip-gloss. "Sheldon Shlepper?"

Sheldon braced himself. He should have figured, Derek wouldn't bother to take him down himself – he was going to let one of his teammates do the "honors".

"Is something in your eyes?" Sam asked him. Sheldon hadn't realized he's squeezed them shut.

"We're both fully dressed, Loser!" Kendra hissed. "You don't have to worry about catching sight of a breast before your wedding night!"

Sheldon's eyes popped back open, he could feel his cheeks warm. "I … I'm not worried about seeing your breasts … I mean … if they were out … I wouldn't mind seeing them … if …" Sheldon squeezed his eyes back closed. "Go ahead and hit me."

He'd meant that for Sam. But it still wasn't surprising when Kendra's palm smacked his cheek.

"I deserved that."

"Yes, you did." Kendra sniffed and Sheldon opened one eye to see Sam's reaction. The tall blond was laughing at him.

So it looked like Derek was having his buddies wave Sheldon on through … Probably, Derek wanted to beat Sheldon down to pulp in front of Emily. Show the both of them the consequences of their star-crossed love.

Sam had opened the gate as he rubbed Kendra's lip gloss off his face. "Sorry Dude, go on in," Sam clapped him on the shoulder as he went inside.

That "Sorry" … Oh God! … that had to be for what was coming later. This was going to be genuinely painful wasn't it? He would be in the hospital for months! Walk with a limp ever after! Sheldon's throat went dry again as he pictured himself bandaged and hobbling along … Unable to chew his Ramen noodles because of all the missing teeth…

But maybe he would be slurping those noodles with Emily by his side.

If that were true, it'd be worth it.

Even in the dark, Sheldon could make out that the crowd behind the Davis house was huge. It seemed like the entire school had shown up for Emily's party. People milled around the yard talking and drinking.

On the patio they danced wildly to the booming music and, even though it was really too cold for it, a game of volleyball was going on in the pool. Actually, as Sheldon peered a little closer at the activities in the pool, it seemed that no one was really playing volleyball as much as they were batting it away from the …other things … they were doing.

Sheldon watched a blond girl he remembered as a popular cheerleader straddle a dark haired boy under the diving board. It was dark but he could tell what was happening against the deep end of Emily's pool. What was happening was … the love of his life's swimming pool was … being defiled!

Sheldon cupped his hands round his mouth, shouted, "Hey! You two!" from the pools edge.

But with the music so loud it was like he said it to himself.

Sheldon marched over to the diving board and crawled out to where the couple was having sex underneath. He rapped on the board with his knuckles. "You two! Underneath there!"

A wave of chlorinated water rose up over the board to slosh against Sheldon's khakis. "Get lost, Freak!"

Sheldon hung his head over the board and the couple scrambled to put their swimsuits back to rights.

"God! What is your problem?" the dark-haired boy exclaimed.

"Kick his ass, Truman!" the cheerleader slurred. Her eyes were extremely bloodshot and her breath was a like a plume of alcohol in Sheldon's face.

"Shut the fuck up, Amy."

This "Truman" character had moved to an open space beside the diving board and started to hoist himself from the pool. The boy's face had a greenish stain on the side where a nasty bruise must have covered one eye. His nose was crooked and puffy like he'd broken it recently.

The girl he'd abandoned in the pool was bobbing less successfully towards the edge. "Truman? Where are you …" she sputtered against the water in her face and started choking.

Sheldon looked with alarm between "Truman" and the wheezing, drowning, girl Truman had been having sex with. Despite what they'd been engaged in just moments earlier, the boy with the swollen nose didn't seem concerned that the girl was choking on pool water at his feet. He scooped up and expensive looking fluffy towel and slipped his feet into some rubber sandals.

Sheldon yanked on the towel to get Truman's attention, "Your girlfriend is … kinda drowning."

Truman lazily glanced down at the struggling girl. "She isn't my girlfriend." He dismissed her flailing with a shrug.

Sheldon and Truman both watched as Amy lost the struggle to get to the pools edge and water closed over her head.

"Oh My God!" Sheldon jumped into the pool next to the drowning girl -- it was apparently enough of a surprise that she seemed to revive somewhat. She kicked against his body and propelled herself to the pool's rim.

Amy lunged up, onto the deck.. She was coughing up water but seemed fine… well furious but fine.

Some people around them had looked over to laugh as Sheldon struggled, fully dressed from the pool.

"Truman, you asshole! I am too your girlfriend!"

Truman had wrapped the towel around his waist and he folded his arms over a bare, also somewhat bruised looking chest.

He cocked an eyebrow at the drunk and dripping Amy. "Please!" he scoffed. "I think we both know that you aren't really girlfriend material."

Sheldon winced. Harsh! Who _was_ this guy? He didn't remember anyone this … _evil_ … going to J.S. Thompson when he was still a student there.

"You asshole!" Amy screeched. "I wish Derek Venturi had kicked your ass even worse than he did! I wish he'd broken a lot more than your nose!"

_Derek_ was responsible for the evil kid's bruises? _God!_ And here Sheldon was planning to make a move for Venturi's girlfriend. He really WAS a dead man walking.

Truman rolled his eyes at Amy and turned away from her.

The girl let loose with a half-scream, half-growl noise and pounced on his back, scratching and slapping at him. Drunken partiers crowded around them to watch, swallowing up Sheldon's view.

Sheldon stood by the side of the pool, still panting a little from his impromptu swim. After a moment, he slumped on the edge of the diving board, tiredly unlaced his shoes. He dumped the water out of them and slowly wrung out his soaking socks.

"Sheldon?"

He shook the water dripping off his bangs into his eyes. Was that really her? "Emily?"

She wore a low-cut pink sundress he didn't remember her owning before and her hair was longer and straighter, but she was still Emily – the girl he loved. His breath caught in an embarrassing gasp.

Emily didn't look or sound very happy. As a matter of fact, she looked like she had been crying. Even though it was dark and she wasn't standing very close to him, Sheldon could see that her mascara had run in two rivulets down her cheeks. Beside this, her voice was hoarse and nasal the way it always got when she cried. And although his heart clenched at the thought of an upset Emily, he was relieved he still found her so familiar. Still Emily.

"Is that really you? " she asked him. "Sheldon?" She didn't wait for him to answer. "What are you doing here?"

"You invited me." Sheldon reached into the pocket of his sopping khakis and pulled out a ball of mush that had been his invitation.

"You even wrote a note on it. Remember?"

Emily shook her head. _No? She really didn't remember?_

He came forward, the cement pool deck was cold under his feet … and sticky. Plastic cups were littered all around the ground. Some of them still contained beer and sweet smelling alcoholic concoctions.

"This is a pretty wild party," he said nervously. She was just staring at him.

Sheldon grabbed her hand, his own tingling at her smooth, warm, skin under his clammy grip. He thrust the invitation mush on Emily's palm.

She looked down at it and back at him.

"I wouldn't have thought your parents would be all hunky-dory with the alcohol …"

Emily sniffed like she was about to start up again with the tears. "My parents aren't here. They took Dimi to Disneyworld for the weekend and they …" A big tremulous breath interrupted her.

Sheldon took a step closer.

This was classic "Emily getting herself under control" stance. She'd dropped the soggy invitation and flexed her hands in front of her as if she braced herself on an invisible table. She took another deep breath—still tremulous—and stood up straighter. "My parents trusted me. They thought I was their capable, adult daughter and that I could handle a party on my own … "

Sheldon took another step towards her, nearly touching … the one thing he remembered about the "Emily getting herself under control" stance was that it always preceded the "Emily falling apart" breakdown.

"But all the football and hockey players brought beer and then someone started offering shots of tequila …." When she started to sob, he had her in his arms, pressed tightly against his chest.

"It's all going to be okay," he reassured her.

Emily gripped his wet shirt and Sheldon spent a quick moment wishing he'd let crazy Amy drown, just so he could offer the love of his life a place to dry her tears. "…so now everyone is drunk and some are e… e…even sm …sm …smoking pot and s..s..someone threw up in my m… m…mom's birdbath! I'm going to be in so much trouble and my parents are going to be so d…d…disappointed in m… m…me…"

"It's all going to be okay, Emily." Sheldon would have to settle for patting her reassuringly since he couldn't dry her eyes. "I'm sure that the real person to blame isn't you. Your parents will figure that out just like I did. The real person at fault here is Derek."

Emily pulled away from him, the front of her pink sundress was wet and blotchy from Sheldon holding her. "Derek isn't even here!" she sobbed. "I thought … maybe…but he isn't coming."

Emily dove back into Sheldon's chest.

He held her again but he was puzzled, "What do you mean he isn't coming? Isn't he the one who wanted a big party like this? Isn't he your boyfriend?"

"No," Emily choked out. "He hates me! I've been such a bitch about everything with him and Casey these last two weeks..."

Sheldon dragged Emily over to a clear spot of grass – away from the crowd.

"What about Derek and Casey?"

. . . . . . . .

Sheldon was still soaking wet and shoeless when he left Emily's house. No problem. He wasn't going far – just next door.

_Had he really been afraid that Derek Venturi was going to kill him? Okay he had been._

He marched past Sam, who was still making out with Kendra.

But all that worry over Derek killing him was before he knew about Derek breaking Emily's heart. Sheldon had planned on sacrificing himself in a gesture of his love for Emily. His death would be noble and romantic. But not anymore …

Now _he_ was going to kill _Derek_!

TBC


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15 – Derek

"There's someone out there! Marti over."

"We are on alert! Edwin over."

"He's soaking wet and mad! Marti over. "

"The enemy is attacking by water? This could be a problem because we're prepared for an air attack…"

"Derek, Edwin, no one better use a water-gun in the house! Casey over."

"No chit-chat during battle. And get off our channel! Derek over…OW!" Derek recovered in time to dodge the second tennis ball gunned towards his head. The ball ricocheted off the wall beside him and bounced crazily down the attic stairs. "Crap!" He dove sloppily out of his hiding place behind Edwin's door. "I'm under fire! I'm under fine! Marti, do you copy?"

Derek tried to make a run from the attic stairs to the games closet but something snagged his foot. Casey tackled him to the ground and sat on his chest to pin him.

He could have easily thrown her off him, but she looked so pleased with herself as she stared him down, with a copy of his own smug smirk, that he didn't have the heart. Instead, he raised his hands in surrender.

Lizzie grabbed the walkie-talkie from Derek's grasp. "Marti? Edwin? We have your leader…surrender to us peacefully…and"

"HEY!"

Marti suddenly appeared at the end of the hallway. "That wasn't part of the game! I was serious! There's a soaking wet, mad, person on our doorstep!"

_Huh?_ Derek scooted out from under Casey. Just then, the doorbell rang.

Edwin peeked out of Casey's room. "Is that the doorbell? Did someone order pizza?"

Casey climbed off Derek and they both stood up. "Did we order pizza?" Derek asked looking at her. Over the years they'd fallen into a rhythm with their babysitting: Derek kept everyone busy and his stepsister took care of … the "taking care" part. Casey shook her head.

The kids made there way downstairs to the front door as the person on the other side decided to bang his fist against it.

"Hang on! Hang on!" Derek scowled at whatever the perceived emergency could be on the other side of the door. He half expected Sam or Ralph to drunkenly insist he come next door to party with them.

Edwin got to the door first but Derek stepped in front of him at the last second to open it. The McDonald-Venturi kids all stared at a dripping wet, startled looking Sheldon Schlepper.

Derek tensed. It didn't take a genius to know what a pissed off Sheldon Schlepper would want with him. The dork probably came back in town to try and steal Emily away … or propose again …or something. Emily probably told Sheldon some version of events that made Derek look like a total prick and now Sheldon was going to prove his love for her by threatening the guy who "did her wrong." Derek tried not to roll his eyes.

Maybe if he let Sheldon save face a little, punch him or whatever the idiot had in mind when he stomped over here--_shoeless?_ --then Derek could finally put the whole mess with Emily behind him.

But Sheldon didn't move to punch Derek or even drop the startled look from his face. Obviously he had expected something more mano-a-mano when he'd stomped over to the Venturi house. Seeing all the kids, dressed in pajamas and camouflage face paint had really stopped him short.

Marti stepped forward. "Do you want a towel?"

"Um…"

Derek didn't miss the strong flush of embarrassment in Sheldon's cheeks. He guessed that in Sheldon's Casey-like sense of chivalry, it was somehow morally undignified to pounce on the elder brother of a little girl who had just offered you a towel.

"Sheldon!" Casey smiled cheerily. "Are you here for Emily's party?" She moved forward like she was going to hug him and the flush burned stronger in Sheldon's face.

"Actually …"

Casey seemed to notice Sheldon's dripping clothes and thought twice about hugging him. She settled for patting his shoulder as a greeting.

Derek had to bite hard on his cheek to keep his amusement at bay. Sheldon's own sense of morality was kicking his ass much harder than anything Derek would have dealt out, even if he HAD still been with Emily! He couldn't resist taking another swipe at Sheldon's conscience. Derek schooled his features into his best look of sincere concern, "Do you want to borrow a bathing suit?" he asked.

"No thanks." Sheldon hung his head.

"Sheldon _stop_!" Suddenly, Emily emerged from the dark and to stand on the Venturi porch beside her dripping champion. She was out of breath and had to bend over for a second as everyone gathered around her.

"Em, are you okay?" Casey asked. She glanced worriedly back at Derek as she stepped out onto the porch. _Oh God!_ Derek might have fun toying with a do-gooder like Sheldon Schlepper, but he had Casey pulling his own strings these days. And his stepsister's streak of righteous do-gooder could put any "concerned citizen" to shame.

Derek could hear the party still going full force at the house next door. If anything, it sounded like the music and shouting and laughter was louder than it had been earlier in the night.

"Are you having fun at your party?" Casey asked her best friend. Derek felt a wrench of guilt at the distance that had settled between the girls these last two weeks. When Casey had dated Sam, he hadn't had to deal with the mess of their relationship affecting his friendship with his best friend. But, because of him, Emily had practically abandoned her friendship with Casey. It bothered him more than he'd thought it would.

Emily crumpled at her friend's concern, "No, I'm not. I'm having a terrible time because you didn't come and I know that I've been such a bitch, and everyone at the party is drunk and …I miss you, Casey."

Casey's arms circled her friend. "I'm so sorry about everything, Em. I didn't want to hurt you. You're my best friend!"

"I know that. And Derek and I didn't really work out as a couple. I never really cared about him the way that you do… it was just the fantasy."

Sheldon and Derek exchanged horrified expressions at the airing of all these _feelings_. Derek knew why he was embarrassed and he could imagine why Sheldon felt the same way. If it was uncomfortable to hear that he'd been someone's "fantasy," it must be excruciating for Sheldon. He'd obviously come all the way back to London just to … _end up in Emily's pool?_ .

"Uh … so … why are you all … soggy?" Derek gestured at Sheldon's still dripping clothing. "Party out of control?"

Emily broke free of Casey's embrace before Sheldon could answer. "It's completely out of control. At this point… I'm thinking of calling the cops myself!"

Derek winced. "Not a good idea, Em. It's a pretty hefty fine plus community service if they break the party up for you. Trust me on this."

Casey raised an eyebrow at him.

"Anyway," Derek slung an arm around Casey and looked back at their battle-ready siblings. "Maybe we can help you out."

. . . . . .

"Derek in position. Over."

"Marti in position. Over."

"Lizzie and Ed are in position. Over."

"Um … maybe we should call mom and George first …"

"Casey! No chitchat on the channel!"

"Sorry!"

Derek squinted into the darkness at the passionate clench his former girlfriend had on Sheldon Schlepper. "Em, and Sheldon! – I can see you making out from here! Get your minds back on the mission, Soldiers!"

"Sorry Sir!" Sheldon squeaked.

Derek rolled his eyes at his walkie-talkie. Sheldon was the one person alive who could make Casey seem cool.

"We got our heads on straight now, Boss!"

The partying teens in back of the Davis house were only aware they were under attack during the final phases of the plan.

First, the alcohol disappeared. (The result being that a lot of the football and hockey team deciding to "call it a night").

Then, the music shut off. (So the patio mosh-pit disbanded).

Next, a circle of odd lamps, flashlights, camping lanterns and tiki torches suddenly illuminated the swimming pool. Which ended the last "activity of interest" in the Davis back yard. (Derek could hear Marti's "Ewww! Gross!" from across the yard.)

Finally, pajama clad, masked water-gunmen circled the really diehard guests NOT getting the message—_LEAVE!_—and let loose with freezing streams of ice water.

And, just to make sure no one thought about trying to fight back …

In place of the once booming Red Hot Chili Peppers, Celine Dion started belting out "My Heart Will Go On". (Even the neighbors decided THAT was beyond tolerable and, _after hours of ignoring the out of control teenage partying_, someone called the cops).

The last car-load of teens had just disappeared when the sirens made their turn onto the block.

"Listen up!" Derek hollered over Celine's high notes, "Get that music off and everyone go back in the house!"

Derek peeled off his ski mask and swung Marti into his arms. He grabbed Casey by the ponytail, "Not you. You're going to be a prop. Come here."

Casey came to stand beside him, jittery, wide-eyed, as the flashing police lights lit up the lawn. Derek leaned down and touched his lips to hers, not quite a kiss, "Calm down. Don't look at them. Look at me instead."

She took a breath and stilled. He pecked her again on the cheek and Derek decided that she would probably seem calm to anyone else's eyes. Her trust in him worked the same magic that his kiss had in her. Derek stood up straighter—tried to feel more like a man than a boy. He pulled her into his side and smiled as the officers approached them.

"Well I guess those kids were all just saying their goodbyes when they woke up our little girl officers – we might have over-reacted in calling you," he said.

The two policemen stopped wearily in their tracks, one consulting a clipboard. "You're Hiram Steinburg of 2312 Simmons Drive?"

Derek smiled and nodded. He patted Marti's head with the lazy indulgence of a father. "That's right." Derek glanced quickly at the Steinburg house on the other side of the street. He saw a curtain twitch but no light ever came on. _The old coot probably didn't want to have to come out of his house to deal with the police now that the party had dispersed._

"Daddy? Can I get back to bed now?" Marti whined yawning.

Casey frowned at her.

"Sure thing sweetie." Derek shrugged at the two policemen. "I do appreciate you coming out here. Makes us feel a lot safer to see such a fast response to our call."

The officer with the clipboard checked something off. "Well… alright… if there isn't anything else we can do for you… Mr. Steinburg…" His partner was already tiredly trudging back to their car.

Derek pulled rubbed the shoulder of his "wife" as he waved goodbye to the nice policemen.

He had a firm grip on Casey's hand as he led her back to the house. "Don't say a word," he warned her. "That was a brilliant move on my part and you know it."

He didn't look, but he could hear her huff with disgust beside him. Still, some part of her must have agreed with the brilliance of his little act because she turned on Marti instead. "Marti, you should never lie to a policeman like that. You could get into a lot of trouble and … it isn't very nice."

"Okay Casey," Marti said sweetly with her best look of big-eyed innocence.

Casey's lips pursed. "I'm serious."

"Okay, Casey," Marti repeated.

Casey turned her glare on Derek. "You are a terrible human being."

"Yeah. Yeah – I heard it all before."

He noticed that Marti made a break for it the second Casey's attention was elsewhere.

He and Casey settled into the couch.

He toyed with a lock of her hair – thought about the future. This time next year, they would be in a different city and, hopefully, moving into an apartment together. He'd had dorm food and roommates when he'd gone to summer hockey camps so he already knew he wouldn't like it.

Derek figured he could survive about a year of the typical college experience before claustrophobic living conditions and mystery meat did a number on his attitude towards school. _Not that it was only her cooking or her respect for personal space that made him certain of his future with her._ Casey's dumbass sense of chivalry, of right and wrong, her self-discipline and absolute immunity to his bullshit made her a necessary figure in his life. He would be apartment hunting with her this time next year because he really couldn't negotiate the future without her.

He put his arms around his stepsister – _girlfriend_ – he would have to get used to calling her that before they left for Queens. He put his arm around his _girlfriend_, "Not that it wasn't fun… but I'm pretty much done with high school. How 'bout you?"

Casey leaned against him. "Yeah, me too…finally." She smiled one of her goofy trusting smiles at him. "Bring on the future," she said.

"Yeah," he agreed. He leaned in to kiss her, stroked her smooth, soft cheek with one thumb. This was what he wanted now, and for the future. _Bring it on._

_. . . _

_The end!_


End file.
